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EXITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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JAMES G. BLAINE. 



A BRIEF HISTORY 



REPUBLICAN PARTY 



PROM ITS ORGANIZATION TO THE PRESIDENTIAL 
CAMPAIGN OP 1884. 








By EUGENE VY SMALLEY 



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NEW YORK: 
JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHEE. 

1884. 



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Copyright, 1884, by Eugene V. Smalley. 



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INTRODUCTION. 



The purpose of tnisworkis to describe very briefly the origin, 
rise, and growth of the Republican Party, its great achieve- 
ments in moulding public opinion, and its important work of 
administration and legislation. Since the party was formed, a 
new generation of voters has come upon the stage of political 
action, to whom its early history is little more than a tradition. 
A brief resume of that history must be interesting and instruc- 
tive to these young Republicans who have taken up the work 
of the party and are to carry it on after all its founders have 
passed away, and its older members can hardly fail to find some 
pleasure and profit in reviewing the story of its organization 
and victories. No party ever had such a record. It has freed 
four millions of slaves ; it has suppressed the most f ormidable 
rebellion the world ever saw ; it has preserved and strengthened 
the credit of the nation ; it has conferred equal rights of suf- 
frage and citizenship upon all the inhabitants of this Republic, 
and it has administered the Government for twenty-four years 
with signal fidelity, honor, and intelligence. Within the com- 
pass of a work so limited as this, it is not possible to go into 
many interesting details concerning the career of this great 
historic party. Very little can be said about its action in State 
campaigns and its position upon State issues. Its history as a 
national organization alone is dealt with in the following pages, 
and that, too, in as condensed a form as is consistent with the 
presentation of all important facts. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Introduction, - - - - - -- - 3 

History of the Republican Party, - - - - - 5 

Republican National Platforms. ----- 81 

Early Republican Leaders, - - - - - - 106 

Republican Victories, ------- 119 

Reduction of the Public Debt and Interest, - - - - 133 



A BRIEF HISTORY 



OF 



THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES. 

All political parties that have exerted marked influence upon 
their times, have had their beginnings far back of the period of 
their organization. Parties are somewhat like generations of 
men. The characteristics of any single generation cannot prop- 
erly be studied without some knowledge of those that have gone 
before. It occasionally happens that a party comes up sud- 
denly on some transient wave of popular excitement, growing 
out of events essentially temporary in their nature, or springs 
from some fictitious issue, magnified into importance for the 
time being by the lack of any real fundamental question affect- 
ing the Government and the interests of the people. The roots 
of such parties are never worth seeking, because the plant itself 
bears no seed and soon withers and disappears. 

The Republican Party was the child of the conscience of the 
North, aroused, at length, to assertion by the growth of the 
institution of slavery. In its embryonic forms, it existed al- 
most from the beginning of the Government. It did not gain 
strength and individuality, however, until more than half a 
century after the adoption of the Federal Constitution. A 



6 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

brief examination of the history of the parties preceding it is 
essential to an understanding of the changes in public senti- 
ment which at last developed this most important, most pow- 
erful, and most moral of all the political organizations that 
have thus far arisen in the United States. 

During the Revolution there were but two parties in the 
country : the Patriot Party, supporting the effort for separate 
national life, and the Tory Party, which opposed the severing 
of the Colonies from the mother country. After the recogni- 
tion of American Independence parties soon divided on the 
question of forming a closer union between the States. One, 
known as the Federalist Party, favored the adoption of a Con- 
stitution creating a strong, enduring National Government, 
and the other, called the Anti-Federalist Party, desired to up- 
hold the rights of the States as separate and sovereign, and to 
continue the mere league between them formed by the Articles 
of Confederation. The feebleness of the old system became 
more and more apparent, and a convention, called in 1787, for 
the purpose of amending and strengthening the Articles of Con- 
federation, adopted a Constitution, after a four months' session, 
and thus created a new government, with independent and sov- 
ereign powers within its own prescribed functions. This new 
government had no model in history. The Swiss Republic was, 
at that time, a league of cantons, closely resembling our own 
form of government prior to the adoption of the Constitution. 
No model was found in antiquity for the experiment. It was, 
therefore, only natural that the scheme of resting a central au- 
thority upon thirteen independent State Governments should 
awake scepticism and resistance. The Anti-Federalist Party 
opposed the ratification of the Constitution, and was successful 
in several States in delaying, for a time, their assent to it. The 
position of the Anti-Federalists was that a single executive head 
was dangerous. They feared, above all things, that the coun- 
try would lapse back into a monarchical condition and lose its 
liberties. The value and necessity of a National Government 
was, however, so clear, that the Federalists were in a large 
majority in the country and held the administration for twelve 
years. In 1788 they elected George Washington, President, 
and John Adams, Vice-President. At that time the Constitu- 
tion required the electors to vote for two candidates for Presi- 
dent. The one having the highest number of votes became 
President, and the one next highest, became Vice-President. 
This system continued until 1804, when the present plan was 



H1ST0R Y OF THE REPUBLICAN PA RTY. 7 

adopted. During Washington's first administration, a fresh 
cause for a division of parties was found in the French question. 
The Anti-Federalists, led by Jefferson, were warm sympa- 
thizers with France, and desired that the new American Re- 
public should, in some form, give assistance to its recent ally. 
The Federalists favored a strict neutrality between Republican 
France and her enemies. Party feeling ran high at the second 
Presidential election in 1792, but Washington again received 
the unanimous vote of the Electoral College. Adams was 
again chosen Vice-President, receiving 77 votes, against 55, of 
which 50 were cast for George Clinton, the candidate of the 
Anti-Federalists . 

About this time the Anti-Federalists began to drop their 
party name and to take the name of Democrats. Thomas Jef- 
ferson, their great leader, objected, however, to the use of the 
word Democrat and sought to secure the adoption of the name 
Republican. Backed by his influence, this name struggled for 
a time for recognition and was used to some extent in a few 
States, but was not generally adopted. Most of the old Anti- 
Federalists preferred the term Democrat as implying more fully 
hostility to the assumption of governmental powers threat- 
ening the individual rights of citizens. In 1796 the Federalists 
elected John Adams, President. He received 71 electoral votes 
and Jefferson, his opponent, receiving 6S, became Vice-Presi- 
dent. Troubles with France arose and nearly resulted in war. 
During these troubles Congress passed two acts, known as the 
Alien and Sedition Laws; one empowering the President to 
order aliens who were conspiring against the peace of the 
United States to quit the country, and the other providing for 
the punishment of seditious libels upon the Government. These 
laws created much party feeling and were denounced by the 
Democrats as tyrannical and unconstitutional. They contrib- 
uted very largely to the overthrow of the Federal Party at the 
Presidential election of 1800, when Mr. Adams was a candidate 
for re-election. The Democrats voted for Jefferson and Burr, 
and gave them 73 votes each in the Electoral College, while 
Adams received 65, Pinckney 64, and John Jay 1. The election 
was thrown into the House of Representatives by a tie be- 
tween Jefferson and Burr. Jefferson was chosen President 
and Burr Vice-President. After Jefferson entered the Execu- 
tive office, his old views about diminishing the powers of the 
General Government were considerably modified. He gave the 
country a vigorous and successful administration and was re- 



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BiSTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PAUTW 9 

CHAPTER II. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. 

Up to 1820, the existence of slavery in the United States had 
been regarded as a misfortune by the people of all sections of 
the country. Indeed, among the causes of grievances brought 
against Great Britain, was her action in forcing the slave trade 
upon the colonies against their will. With scarcely an excep- 
tion, the early statesmen of the Republic looked upon the insti- 
tution of slavery as an evil which would gradually be gotten 
rid of by wise emancipation measures. Looking to that end, 
the slave trade was prohibited and ranked with piracy, as a 
crime, as early as 1808. Mr. Jefferson, the head of the Demo- 
cratic party, was one of the most enlightened opponents of 
slavery, and was far from foreseeing that the party which he 
had founded would in after-years, become its chief defender. 
The first anti-slavery society in the country was formed by the 
Quakers of Pennsylvania, but there were, at an early period, 
organizations of emancipationists in the South who kept up 
some agitation in behalf of measures for getting rid of the insti- 
tution by the action of the State Governments. One after an- 
other of the Northern States where slavery existed provided 
for its gradual abolition, and the sentiment in the North was 
so nearly unanimous in opposition to fastening slavery perma- 
nently upon the country that it insisted that for every new 
Southern State which came in, a Northern free State should be 
admitted. Thus, Vermont, Ohio, and Indiana compensated for 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana; and later, Maine coun- 
terbalanced Alabama. Thus far, the number of free and slave 
States was equal. Then the question arose in 1820 about ad- 
mitting Missouri with a slave Constitution. It gave rise to a 
vehement public discussion which was rather sectional than 
political. The people of the Northern States insisted that a 
clause prohibiting slavery should be inserted in the Missouri 
Constitution as a condition of the admission of that State. 
The struggle went on in Congress for over two years. While 
it aroused the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, which 
had been almost dormant, it also had the effect of inciting 
the South to a united and earnest defence of an institution 
which had before been regretted, even in that section, as 



10 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

undesirable and temporary in its nature. A compromise, de- 
vised by Henry Clay, settled the struggle for the time being. 
Missouri was admitted with slavery, but an act was passed 
prohibiting slavery in all the new territory lying north of 
latitude 36 degrees and 30 minutes, which was the Southern 
boundary of Missouri. This settlement became known as 
the "Missouri Compromise."' The North gained nothing that 
did not belong to it before and the South secured the admis- 
sion of a new slave State, north of the old line separating 
freedom from slavery. This line was known as ' ' Mason and 
Dixon's Line." from the names of two surveyors who, at 
an early day. ran the boundary between Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania. The measure was universally adopted in the po- 
litical discussions of the time to designate the hue between the 
th and the South — the free States and the slave States. 
The " Missouri Compromise " laid the foundation of the Repub- 
lican Party, by creating in the mind of the North, a distrust of 
the South and by developing a political force in the country 
which received the significant designation of the Slave Power. 
This force, in the course of time, suppressed all opposition to 
slavery in the South and asserted the right to convert the 
whole unoccupied territory of the United States into slave 
States, and to carry its human chatties into the Northern 
States under the protection of the Federal Government, in defi- 
ance of the laws of those States. Resistance to the slave 
power and its demands formulated itself in the course of time 
into the Republican Party. 



CHAPTER IH. 

THE WHIG AXD DEMOCRATIC PARTIES. 

Movroe's administration is chiefly famous in history for its 
recognition of the Spanish- American Republics and its declar- 
ation of what is known as the ' ' Monroe Doctrine, " an assertion 
chat any attempt on the part of European Governments to ex- 
tend their systems to any portion of the American Continent 
would be considered to be dangerous to the peace and safety of 
the United States. The destruction of party hues imder Mon- 
roe's ad ministration went so Car that in the election of 1824 
no reorganization on the basis of old ideas was practicable. 
There were four candidates for the Presidency. Andrew Jack- 
son received 99 votes, John Quincy Adams 84, William H. 



BISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. H 

Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. The election was thrown 
into the House of Representatives, and Mr. Adams was chosen 
President. The administration of the new President, who was 
a son of the great Federalist, John Adams, might have been ex- 
pected to restore the Federal Party, but that party had outlived 
its usefulness. It had witnessed a complete success of its ideas 
respecting the National Government and there was no occasion 
for its revival. The supporters of Mr. Adams called themselves 
National Republicans, but the name did not long survive. Mr. 
Adams's policy did not differ much from that of Mr. Monroe. 
The distinguishing event of his administration was the adoption 
of the protective tariff system which was favored by the North 
and opposed by the South. Parties degenerated into factions 
and the personal popularity of the political leaders had more to 
do with their success than any principles they professed. In 
1828, Mr. Adams was a candidate for re-election, but was de- 
feated by Andrew Jackson, who had 178 votes, to Adams's 83. 
Jackson was a narrow-minded man of limited education, strong 
prejudices, violent temper, and little schooling in statesmanship, 
whose popularity grew out of his success as a military com- 
mander. He introduced personal government at Washington to 
a far greater extent than any of his predecessors or successors. 
Fealty to him, personally, was the chief test of merit in his 
eyes. For a time the country was divided into a Jackson party 
and an anti-Jackson party, all other names being lost sight of. 
Jackson brought into American politics the theory that "to 
the victors belong the spoils ;" and was the first President who 
removed from office all persons not favorable to him politically. 
John Quincy Adams had made a few removals of officials in 
high position, but there was a great public clamor against him. 
for these acts. Jackson swept the entire public service of every- 
body who had not favored his election, and filled the offices 
with his personal partisans. The corruption of American poli- 
tics in more recent times is largely due to this high-tempered, 
bigoted, and egotistical man ; but his glaring faults almost merit 
complete forgiveness, in view of his great service to the coun- 
try in suppressing the nullification movement in South Caro- 
lina. 

Up to this time, the South, and particularly the Democratic 
Party in the South, had asserted the doctrine, that the Consti- 
tution is a federal compact between sovereign States, and that 
in such compacts between sovereigns who are equal there is no 
arbiter, each State being the rightful judge, as a party to the 



12 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARtff. 

compact, of the constitutionality of any measure of the General 
Government. This view was asserted by the Legislatures of 
Virginia and Kentucky, in what are generally called the reso- 
lutions of 1798. The doctrine that each State can judge for 
itself whether the laws or the action of the Government is con- 
stitutional or not became in time a part of the platform of 
principles of the Democratic Party, and was held to with par- 
ticular zeal by the people of the South. In 1832, South Caro- 
lina, under the lead of John C. Calhoun, endeavored to resist 
the enforcement of the new tariff law, by a process called nul- 
lification. Less from statesmanship and patriotism, perhaps, 
than from motives of personal hostility to Mr. Calhoun, Pres- 
ident Jackson threw himself with all the force of his reso- 
lute nature upon the other side, and declared his intention to 
treat nullification as treason, and to hang the men who resisted 
the authority of the United States. He ordered a large armed 
force to Charleston and thus put an end to the incipient move- 
ment for dissolving the Union. His vigorous conduct caused 
the total abandonment of the theory that a State can set aside 
the laws of the United States at its pleasure. The South 
shifted its policy, and soon began to rally on a new position, 
namely, that when a State does not like the conduct of the 
General Government, it has a right to secede from the Union. 
The nullification question was not taken up as a party issue, 
and, indeed, Jackson gave it very little time to ferment in the 
public mind. He furnished the country with an issue, how- 
ever, by assailing the Bank of the United States, an institution 
modelled somewhat after the Bank of England and having close 
relations to the Government. It is said that Jackson's hostility 
to the bank arose from the refusal of one of its branches in the 
South to cash his checks when he was carrying on the Florida 
War. In 1832, the President recommended the removal of the 
public funds from the bank. Congress refused to authorize the 
removal. Then Jackson, on his own responsibility, ordered the 
Secretary to withdraw the deposits and place them in certain 
State banks. That officer refusing, he was removed and Mr. 
Taney appointed to his place. The bank was broken down, a 
great financial panic followed, and serious commercial distress 
afflicted the country. The opponents of Jackson's policy to- 
ward the bank organized themselves under the name of the 
Whig Party, taking this name because the Whig Party in Eng- 
land had resisted the arbitrary measures of the king. Thus, 
by a curious change of the political situation, the leader of the 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 13 

Democrats, the party formed to resist strong government in 
this country, became the type and exemplar of the strong gov- 
ernment idea, and the Whigs, the successors of the Federalists, 
became, as they imagined, the defenders of the people against 
the encroachments of Executive power. In 1832, just before 
the bank question came up, Jackson was re-elected by 219 elec- 
toral votes, against a divided opposition, casting 49 votes for 
Henry Clay, 11 for John Floyd, and 7 for William Wirt. A 
short-lived popular excitement against secret societies, and es- 
pecially against the Masons, had sprung up, and Wirt was the 
candidate of a new party called the Anti-Masonic Party. He re- 
ceived the electoral vote of Vermont. Martin Van Buren was 
chosen Vice-President. In 1836, General Jackson put forward 
Mr. Van Buren as his successor. The bank question, the tariff 
question, and opposition to the personal government of Jack- 
son were the chief issues. Jackson had made a powerful im- 
pression on the rather unorganized public sentiment of the 
country by his boldness and independence, and his influ- 
ence was still sufficient to secure the election of Van Buren, 
who received 170 electoral votes. The Whig vote was divided 
between William Henry Harrison, 73; Hugh L. White, 26; 
Daniel Webster, 14; and Willie P. Mangum, 11. Up to 1832 
national nominating conventions were unknown. A party 
caucus of members of Congress selected the candidates for 
President and Vice-President, and not unfrequently State Leg- 
islatures put candidates in the field. Van Buren's administra- 
tion was exceedingly unpopular. The commercial crisis of 
1837 and the hard times which followed reacted powerfully 
against the dominant party. The administration was charged 
with the dullness of trade, the stagnation of industry, the 
scarcity of good money, and the alarming number of business 
failures. More to the hard times than to any other cause was 
due tjie overwhelming success of the Whigs in 1840. The 
Whigs held a national convention at Harrisburg, in December, 
1839, and nominated General William Henry Harrison for 
President, and John Tyler for Vice-President. The Democrats 
held their convention at Baltimore, in May, 1840, and unani- 
mously nominated Van Buren for re-election. The campaign 
was the most exciting, demonstrative, and dramatic that had 
ever taken place in this country, and the result was that Har- 
rison and Tyler received 234 electoral votes, and Van Buren 
60. The Democratic vote for Vice-President was divided. 
Harrison's popular vote was 1,275,011, and that of Van Buren 



14 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

1.12?. 702. Although Harrison's majority of the popular vote 
was a very small one. his electoral majority was enormous, a 
discrepancy which strikingly illustrates the peculiarity of our 
electoral system. 

Harrison died a month after his inauguration — worried to 
death by office-seekers, it is said. His successor. John Tyler. 
proved treacherous to the Whig Party, espoused the views of 
the Democrats, changed his Cabinet, and finally went over to 
the Democratic side. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

REVIVAL OF THE SLAVERY AGITATION— THE LIBERTY PARTY. 

I>~ 1844, the Democrats nominated James K. Polk for Presi- 
dent, and the YVhigs nominated Henry Clay. The question of 
the extension of slave territory entered largely into the canvass. 
A treaty had been negociated for the annexation of Texas, then 
an independent Republic, but still claimed by Mexico as a part 
of her dominions. The treaty was rejected by the Senate and 
the Democratic Party throughout the country took it up and 
declared in their conventions that it was a great American 
measure. The Whigs were nearly unanimous in their opposi- 
tion to the Texan scheme ; in the North, because of their un- 
willingness to give the slave power another State ; in the 
South, on various grounds of expediency. The opposition of 
the Whigs was n A sufficiently clear and earnest, however, to 
draw to their support all the voters hostile to the annexation 
project. A party was organized which took broad grounds 
against the extensiun of slavery and assumed for itself the 
name of the Liberty Party. It was. in fact, an offshoot f rom the 
anti-slavery organizations throughout the North. A struggle 
arose in the American Anti-slavery Society as to the duty of its 
members. One faction, headed by William Lloyd Garrison, ab- 
stained wholly from voting, on the ground that the Constitu- 
tion was a covenant with the slave power to protect slavery. 
The other faction insisted that the way to fight slavery was to 
use the weapon of the ballot. This faction became the Liberty 
Party, and nominated James G. Birney for President. It was 
a very small party, but an exceedingly earnest one, and although 
it never had a majority in any State, and probably not in any 
county, it frequently held the balance of power, and exerted 
considerable influence on the two great parties. Just before the 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 15 

election of 1844, Mr. Clay wrote a letter which dissatisfied the 
Liberty Party and also the anti-slavery Whigs in the State of 
New York. About 16,000 votes were cast in New York for 
Birney and were mostly withdrawn from the Whig ticket. 
This defection caused the loss of the State to Clay, defeated 
him for the Presidency, and changed the whole subsequent 
history of the country. The result of the election was 174 votes 
for Polk and Dallas, and 105 for Clay and Frelinghuysen, the 
vote of New York turning the scale. Under Polk's administra- 
tion, Texas was admitted and war was waged with Mexico. 
The war was opposed by most of the Northern Whigs who had 
begun to be considerably tinctured with anti-slavery senti- 
ments, and still more strongly opposed by the Liberty Party 
men and the G-arrisonians, now called by the name of Aboli- 
tionists, who believed that the purpose of the conflict was to 
secure more territory to be made into slave States. 

The decline of the Whig Party dates from this period. As a 
national organization it was obliged to cater to the South, 
where a large part of its strength lay, and no positive declara- 
tion against the extension of slavery could be got from its con- 
ventions. At the same time a feeling of hatred to the slave 
power had obtained a firm lodgment in the mind of a large por- 
tion of its Northern members. The Whig Party embraced in 
its membership a much larger portion of the intelligent and 
educated classes of the country than its rival, the Democratic 
Party. In the South, these classes contented themselves with 
opposition to extreme pro-slavery measures threatening the 
perpetuity of the Union, but in the North they began more 
and more to demand such action as should stop the growth of 
the slave power and secure to freedom all the unoccupied terri- 
tory of the United States. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WILMOT PROVISO — THE FREE SOIL PARTY — THE CAMPAIGN OP 

1848. 

It became apparent before the end of the war, that the de- 
feat of Mexico would be followed by the cession of a large part 
of her territory to the United States, and the question began to 
be agitated in Congress as early as 1847, of what should be the 
condition of this territory in reference to slavery. At a con- 
sultation of members of the House from the free States, who 



16 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

felt that the extreme limit of justifiable concession to slavery 
had already been reached, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, 
presented the following proviso, to be offered to any bill for the 
organization of new Territories : ' ' That as an express and fun- 
damental condition to the acquisition of new territory from the 
Eepublic of Mexico, by the United States, by virtue of any treaty 
that may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the 
Executive of any moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said 
territory, except for crime whereof the party shall first be duly 
convicted. " This was the famous Wilmot Proviso which played 
a large part in the political history of the succeeding years. It 
served to bring together many members of both the Whig and 
Democratic organizations who were opposed to the extension 
of slavery. Its advocates were called in the political nomen- 
clature of the day, ' ' Wilmot Proviso Men, " although they ad- 
hered for a time to their old party connections. The proviso 
was offered to the bill for negotiating a treaty with Mexico, 
but was defeated in the House. 

In 1848 the Democrats nominated for President, General 
Lewis Cass, of Michigan. His principal competitors in the 
convention were James Buchanan and Levi Woodbury. The 
nominee for Vice-President was General William O. Butler, of 
Kentucky. The New York Democrats divided into two fac- 
tions, one, called "Barn-burners," opposed the extension of 
slavery, and the other, styled "Hunkers," sympathized fully 
with the South. The "Barn-burners " bolted from the Demo- 
cratic convention, and sent delegates to a national convention 
held at Buffalo, which organized a new party, called the Free 
Soil Party. The Free Soil Party was the legitimate successor 
of the Liberal Party of 1848. The Buffalo convention nomi- 
nated Martin Van Buren for President, and Charles Francis 
Adams for Vice-President. Van Buren's nomination weakened 
the moral force of the new movement, for while President he 
had been a tool of the slave power, and only since his retire- 
ment to private life had he expressed himself against the exten- 
sion of slavery to the Territories. The motive of his nomina- 
tion Avas to secure the votes of the "Barn-burners" of New 
York and to defeat Cass. 

The Whig National Convention met in Philadelphia and 
nominated General Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, for Presi- 
dent. His chief competitors for the nomination were Henry 
Clay, General Scott, and Daniel Webster. Taylor's nomina- 



H1ST0R Y OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. i? 

tion was exceedingly popular in the country on account of his 
brilliant service in the Mexican War and his lack of any politi- 
cal record with which fault could be found. The Democrats, in 
their convention, refused to endorse the extreme Southern view, 
that slaves were property and could be carried into the Terri- 
tories under the protection of the Government. The Whigs 
dodged the slavery question altogether. The Free Soilers 
claimed that the Constitution was hostile to slavery and in- 
tended to limit it to the States where it existed by virtue of local 
laws, and further, that the Federal Government should relieve 
itself from all responsibility for the existence of the institution. 
At the election, General Taylor carried 15 States, with 1G3 
electoral votes ; and General Cass 15 States, with 137 electoral 
votes. Van Buren carried no State, but had a large vote 
throughout the 'North. The entire popular vote stood : Taylor 
and Fillmore, 1,360,752; Cass and Butler, 1,219,962; Van Buren 
and Adams, 291,342. The general effect of the canvass was to 
show that the Democrats were pretty thoroughly committed 
to the slave power and that the Whigs did not dare to antag- 
onize it. The agitation produced by Van Buren's candidacy 
served a good purpose in further arousing public sentiment in 
the North to the encroachments of slavery. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE COMPROMISE OP 1850 AND THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAW. 

Soon after the peace with Mexico, which secured to the 
United States all the territory comprised in the present States 
of California and Nevada, and the Territories of Utah, Ari- 
zona, and New Mexico, gold was discovered in California, and 
an immense rush of emigration occurred. In a short time there 
were people enough there to form a State Government. They 
adopted a Constitution prohibiting slavery, and applied for ad- 
mission to the Union. At that time there were 15 slave States 
and 15 free States, and the admission of California would place 
the free States in the majority of one. It was therefore vehe- 
mently opposed by the representatives of the slave power. 
Many slave States threatened secession if the new State should 
be admitted without some concessions to secure the equality of 
the South in the future. They demanded a recognition of their 
claim that slavery should not be prohibited in the Territories 



18 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AIT PARTY. 

or its existence be made an objection to the admission of a new 
State. They also demanded a guarantee against the abolition 
of slavery in the District of Columbia, and a stringent fugitive- 
slave law. The contest in Congress lasted nearly two years, 
and was finally settled by what was known as the Compromise 
of 1850. 

Zachary Taylor, who though a slaveholder did not sympa- 
thize with the extreme Southern view, had died before the con- 
troversy culminated, and Millard Fillmore, his successor, openly 
espoused the side of the pro-slavery leaders. The compromise 
was advocated by Henry Clay, and received, also, the support 
of the great Northern Whig leader, Daniel Webster, who aban- 
doned his anti-slavery position and went over, with his great 
intellect and influence to the side of the slaveholders. His 
action divided the Whig party in the North and practically 
gave it a death-blow. Wm. H. Seward became the leader of the 
anti-slavery Whigs. The compromise of 1850 admitted Cali- 
fornia with its free constitution, and left for future settlement 
the status of the rest of the conquered territory in respect to 
slavery; rejected the Wilmot Proviso, and paid Texas $10,000,- 
000 for a visionary claim to the Territory of New Mexico ; pro- 
hibited slave auctions in the District of Columbia, and enacted 
the fugitive-slave law. This law shocked the moral sense of 
the more intelligent portion of the American people and exerted 
a powerful influence in preparing men's minds for the advent 
of the Republican Party. It provided for the return of alleged 
fugitives without trial by jury, allowing their captors to take 
them before a United States Commissioner, who was empow- 
ered to remand them on the ex-parte depositions of the slave- 
catchers. The Commissioners were paid ten dollars in case they 
directed the return of the alleged fugitive, and five dollars if, 
for any cause, they decided against the claimant. In effect, 
therefore, they were offered a bribe to order the return of the 
person claimed as a slave. Slave-catchers were authorized to 
summon bystanders to their aid, and all good citizens were 
commanded to assist in the arrest of alleged fugitive slaves. 
The law, in effect, ordered the people of the North to turn slave- 
catchers themselves, and threatened them with heavy penal- 
ties in case they harbored or assisted fugitives. Several cases 
of extreme brutality arose from the execution of this law. 
Professional slave-hunters invaded the North and captured col- 
ored persons without much regard to whether they had run 
away from slavery or not. In some cases there was resistance 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, ] fl 

on the part of the people, and trials occurred which served to 
increase the irritation in the public mind. The law was vehe- 
mently denounced by the anti-slavery Whigs, the anti-slavery 
Democrats, and the Free Soilers, and the Abolitionists found in 
it a new text for the crusade they preached with so much earn- 
estness and self-denial against the "sum of all villainies." 
Some of the Northern States passed what were known as " Per- 
sonal Liberty Bills," practically nullifying the fugitive-slave 
law and punishing as kidnappers persons who sought to carry 
off alleged slaves without trial by jury. These personal liberty 
bills furnished a notable illustration of the powerlessness of 
theories of government, when human rights are involved. 
Hitherto the slave States had alone maintained extreme State 
rights doctrines, but now the free States practically asserted 
such doctrines in their legislation hostile to the Federal au- 
thority. The personal liberty bills set at naught the authority 
of the United States so far as it was sought to be exercised in the 
enforcement of the fugitive-slave law. They asserted the right 
of the State to protect the people within her borders from 
arrest and imprisonment without trial and from being carried 
off as slaves. They fell back upon the clause in the Consti- 
tution which says: "In any suits at common law, whereof 
the value of the controversy shall exceed $20, the right of trial 
by jury shall be preserved." Fugitives were claimed to be 
property exceeding that value, and it was asserted that they 
could not be deprived of their liberty without a jury trial. 
Public agitation against the fugitive-slave law increased from 
year to year, and it finally became impracticable in most 
parts of the North, save in the great cities, to reclaim fugi- 
tives. Not only was this the case, but associations were 
formed in many parts of the North for the purpose of aiding 
slaves to escape to Canada. The lines over which the fugi- 
tives were forwarded by day and by night, by the anti- 
slavery people, were known as the "Underground Railroad." 
Many thousands of negroes escaped from the border States to 
Canada by the aid of this institution, and became industrious 
and valuable citizens of the British dominions. 



vg WSlO&tOftB* REPUBLIC Ay 

CHAPTER VLL 

v OF 1852— DEFEAT OF THE WHIG PARTY. 

The Whig and Democratic Parties had been fully committed 
_ie action of their representati~ the en- 

dorsement of the compromise measures of 1850, and it was evi- 
dent before their national conventions met in 1852 that they 
would rival each other in professions of fidelity to those meas- 
ures. Indeed, a public pledge had been signed by Henry Clay. 
Howell Cobb, and about fifty other members of Congres- 
both parties, agreeing to abide by the compromise as a final 
adjustment of the controversy between the free and slave 
The Democratic Convention surprised the country by 
dropping General Cass. James Buchanan, and Stephen A. Doug- 
las, who were the leading candidates for the nomination, and 
taking up Franklin Pir : New Hampshire, a man almost 

unknown outside of his own State. On the 50th ballot Pierce 
was no m inated. Win. R. King of Alabama, was nominated for 

President on the second ballot. The convention declared 
that the compromise of 1850 was a finality and that the Demo- 
cratic Party would resist all attempts at renewing the agitation 
of th question. The Whig [National Convention nomi- 

nated General Winfield Scott for President. The other candi- 
dates were Millard Fillmore and Daniel Webster. Scott was 
nominated on the 52d ballot, and Will O. Graham of North 
Carolina was put on the ticket for Tice-President. The plat- 
form endorsed the compromise of 1850, including the fugitive- 
slave law. and declared that t: a it establish^ 
sential to the nationality of the Whig Party and the inte_ 
of the Union. The Whigs went into the canvass with a good 
deal of apparent vigor, but before the close it was evident that 
the poison of slavery had sapped the vitality of the party. 

The Free Soilers met at Pittsburgh, in August, and nomi- 
nated John P. Hale of New Hampshire, for President, and Geo. 

ulian of Indiana,, for Tice-President. Their platform was 
opposition to the extension of slavery and their battle-cry was 

re soil, free speech, free labor, and free men." In some 
States the supporters of Hale and Julian took the name of I 
Democrats, in others they called themselves, Free Soil Demo- 
crats, and in still others, sim; I They did not 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. ^1 

poll as Urge a vote as in 1848. Numbers of New York Demo- 
crats who then voted for Van Buren, returned to their old 
allegiance. They had, however, a pretty effective organization 
in all of the Northern States, sustained a number of influential 
newspapers, and placed in the field many able stump-speakers. 
Most of their vote was drawn from the Whigs. The result of 
the election was that the Democrats carried all the States in 
the Union except Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee, choosing 254 electors. General Scott received only 
42 electoral votes. The popular vote was, Pierce, 1,601,474; 
Scott, 1,386,578; Hale, 156,149. The disaster to the Whigs 
was so overwhelming that it killed their party. They kept 
up some form of an organization for four years more, but it 
was merely a shadow. The party had no longer an excuse for 
living. Its former principles of a protective tariff and a wise 
system of internal improvements had very little hold upon the 
public mind. The country was rapidly dividing on the slavery 
question, and as the Democratic party was generally recognized 
to be the principal ally of the slave power, there was no room 
for another organization not definitely opposed to that power. 
The dead party was sincerely mourned, particularly by a class 
of its adherents in the North, represented by Wm. H. Seward 
and Horace Greely, who had hoped to lead it over to anti- 
slavery ground. It was also regretted by a considerable ele- 
ment of educated and conservative people in the South, sin- 
cerely attached to the Union, and apprehensive of great dan- 
gers to the peace of the country from the extreme ground 
taken on the slavery question by the Democrats. The disap- 
pearance of the Whigs as an organization from the field of pol- 
itics opened the way for the formation of the Eepublican 
Party ; a new and formidable agency, which will be described 
in the next chapter, coining in to complete the work. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RISE AND FALL OF THE KNOW-NOTHING OR AMERICAN PARTY. 

Between the years 1853 and 1855 there suddenly arose a 
party of phenomenal growth and extraordinary ideas. It took 
for itself the name of the American Party, but its members were 
generally known by the popular slang term of "Know -Noth- 
ings," which they did not themselves object to. They were 



22 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

organized into secret lodges, with pass-words and grips, and 
were sworn to vote for no one for a public office who was not a 
native. They proposed that citizenship should not be con- 
ferred, so far as the right of voting was concerned, until after 
twenty-one years' residence. They were peculiarly hostile to 
the Catholics, and claimed that the priests of that Church con- 
trolled the votes of then parishioners. The growth of this 
new organization was marvellous. It spread like wild-fire over 
the country and before it was two years old managed to carry 
many important local and State elections. It must not be sup- 
posed, however, that it was absolutely without roots in the past. 
Native Americanism, as a sentiment, had existed since about 
the year 1S30, and had in several localities in the East assumed 
at different periods the form of political organizations. It 
rested on a not unreasonable apprehension of the growing 
power of the foreign element in the large cities of the country. 
This element, in great part ignorant of our system of govern- 
ment, frequently banded together to carry municipal elections, 
and placed objectionable persons in office. When the idea of 
nativism spread to the whole country and became the basis of 
a national party it was illogical and unpatriotic, because the 
growth of the United States had been largely the result of for- 
eign immigration and a great part of its wealth had been pro- 
duced by the labors of its foreign-born citizens. Many of these 
citizens were men of marked intellectual and moral worth, 
who had studied thoroughly the American system of free gov- 
ernment, and had come to this country to escape the despotic 
limitations of life in the Old World. In seeking to exclude 
such men from voting and holding office in the land of their 
adoption the Know-Nothing movement was evidently unjust. 

The rapid spread of the secret Know-Nothing lodges cannot 
be accounted for by the principles of ordinary political action. 
A study of the laws of mind which govern the propagation of 
intellectual delusions, and produce phenomenal movements in 
the world of religion as well as of politics, would be necessary 
for a philosophical treatment of the matter. Undoubtedly, the 
decay of the Whig party had much to do with the rise of this 
new movement. Men were suddenly cut adrift from their old 
party associations. In this situation they easily became a prey 
to a movement which had the fascination of secrecy and laid 
claims to lofty motives of patriotism. The Know-Nothing 
party culminated in 1855. It nominated Millard Fillmore for 
President in 1856. but it was already on the wane at that time. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 23 

and shortly afterwards the slavery question so completely ab- 
sorbed the public mind that Know-Nothingism subsided as 
rapidly as it had risen, and in a single year disappeared from 
the field of politics. It played a part of some importance in 
the work of forming the Eepublican Party, by making a sort 
of bridge upon which many old Whigs crossed over to that or- 
ganization. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES AND THEIR WORK. 

Before proceeding with the chronological order of our nar- 
rative, it is time that we should pause for a moment to consider 
the work of the anti-slavery societies in the North. Their 
members were few in number and were usually despised by the 
masses of the people as impractical theorists and negro-worship- 
ers, who threatened the tranquility of the country and the 
permanence of the Union ; but they were men of earnest con- 
victions and lofty moral purpose, who, by their tireless exer- 
tions, gradually wore into the Northern mind a conception of the 
atrocity of slavery. These societies were strongest in New Eng- 
land, on the Western Reserve of Ohio, and in the Quaker com- 
munities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. They supported a 
number of eloquent public lecturers, who traversed the country 
and addressed meetings in school houses, churches, and in the 
open air. Often these orators were received with opprobrium 
and insult ; sometimes they were brutally treated by angry mobs ; 
but they kept on heroically with their noble task. The condi- 
tion of public sentiment in the North on the slavery question, 
prior to 1850, can scarcely be understood by the present genera- 
tion. Even the church organizations were, as a rule, bitterly hos- 
tile to all forms of anti-slavery agitation. The Abolitionists, as 
the anti-slavery men were generally called, were looked upon as 
no better than criminals. A bigoted, unreasoning, and often 
brutal devoteeism to the slavery system had taken possession of 
the public mind, and whoever questioned the constitutionality or 
perpetuity of that system ran the risk of ostracism in his social 
and business relations, and if he publicly advocated his ideas, 
actually took his life in his own hands. This sentiment caused 
the anti-slavery men to draw closely together for mutual en- 
couragement and assistance. They believed in the sacred 
humanity of their work. Their lecturers were entertained like 



24 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

brethren at the homes of the members of the society wher- 
ever they went, and every anti-slavery man regarded every 
other anti-slavery man in the light of a near personal friend. In 
some parts of the country, they held annual conventions under 
tents or in groves. A number of newspapers advocated their 
ideas, chief among which was the Liberator, published in Boston 
by William Lloyd Garrison, who was generally recognized as 
the head of the movement. Horace Greeley, in his ' 'Ameri- 
can Conflict," divided the opponents of slavery in the period 
preceding the formation of the Republican Party into four 
classes : 

1. The Garrisonians, who regarded the Federal Constitution 
as " a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. " They 
pledged themselves to wage against slavery an unrelenting war, 
to regard and proclaim the equal and inalienable rights of every 
innocent human being as inferior or subordinate to no other, 
and to repudiate all creeds, rituals, constitutions, governments, 
and parties that rejected these fundamental truths. They gen- 
erally declined to vote, believing the Government and all politi- 
cal parties so corrupted by slavery that no one could take any 
part in politics without moral defilement. 

2. The members of the Liberty Party who, regarding the 
Federal Constitution as essentially anti-slavery, swore with 
good conscience to uphold it and to support only candidates 
who were distinctly, determinedly, and permanently champions 
of liberty for all. 

3. Various small sects and parties which occupied a middle 
ground between the above positions, agreeing with the latter 
in interpreting and revering the Constitution as consistently 
anti-slavery, while refusing with the former to vote. 

4. A large and steadily increasing class who, though decid- 
edly anti-slavery, refused either to withhold their votes or to 
throw them away on candidates whose election was impossible, 
but persisted in voting at nearly every election so as to effect 
good and prevent evil to the extent of their power. 

The influence of all the various forms of anti-slavery agita- 
tion in opening the way for the advent of the Republican Party, 
and laying the foundation for that great organization, can 
scarcely be overstated. 



HISTORY OF TILE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 25 

CHAPTER X. 

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE. 

The result of the election of 1852 was to place the Democrats 
in complete control of the National Government. They had 
the President and a large majority in both houses of Con- 
gress. Their party was now completely dominated by the pro- 
slavery element. Franklin Pierce had been nominated by 
Southern votes and was wholly subservient to the slave power. 
In spite of the professions of the Democrats in their platform 
of 1852, in which they declared the compromise measures of 
1850 to be a finality, settling forever the contest between the 
free and the slave States, Congress had scarcely met in 1853 
before the South began to agitate for the repeal of the prohibi- 
tion of slavery north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes. The 
vast plains lying beyond the States of Iowa and Missouri were 
known to be fertile and adapted for settlement. To remove the 
Indian tribes occupying them and make out of the region two 
new slave States, thus flanking the free States on the west and 
securing for slavery all of the vast region beyond the Missouri 
River, was the ambitious scheme of the Southern leaders. It 
mattered not that the faith of the South had been pledged, first 
by the compromise of 1820 and then by that of 1850, adopted 
as a final settlement of the slavery agitation. The pro-slavery 
leaders felt their power and determined to exercise it. After a 
tremendous struggle in both houses of Congress, they passed a 
bill repealing the prohibition of 1820, and opening all of the 
new Northwest to slavery. The extreme pro-slavery Democrats 
asserted that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional 
and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the ter- 
ritory of the United States. They further asserted that the 
people of the new Territory had no power themselves, by their 
own territorial statutes, to interfere with the holding of slave 
property. A more moderate wing of the party, headed by 
Stephen A. Douglas, broached what was known as the popular 
sovereignty doctrine, which was that the people of the Terri- 
tories should themselves decide whether they would have free 
or slave States, and that Congress had no authority to inter- 
fere with them. Abraham Lincoln once characterized this 
doctrine as, in effect, that one man had the right to enslave 



26 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

another, but a third man had no right to interfere. Mr. Doug- 
las's position prevailed, and the act organizing the Territories 
of Kansas and Nebraska, passed in 1854, permitted the intro- 
duction of slaves into those Territories and left the people free 
to regulate their domestic institutions in their own way. 

The passage of this act created intense public excitement in 
the North. It was regarded as a breach of faith on the part of 
the South and as the forerunner of measures designed to extend 
slavery over the whole country. In every Northern State large 
numbers of men of influence broke loose from the old political 
organizations, and were styled "Anti-Nebraska Men." Public 
meetings were held denouncing the measure, and a great popular 
movement, hostile to the encroachment of slavery, arose spon- 
taneously on a wave of excitement which swept over the entire 
North. The Territory of Nebraska was too far away from the 
slave States to be occupied to any great extent by emigrants 
from the South, but a fierce struggle took place for the possession 
of the Territory of Kansas. Armed men from Missouri moved 
over the border at once to occupy the region and keep out 
Northern immigrants. The Indian titles were quickly extin- 
guished by the Democratic administration and the public lands 
thrown open for settlement. The first party of immigrants 
from the free States were visited by an armed mob and ordered 
to leave the Territory. The spirit of the North was fully aroused, 
however, and thousands of brave, intelligent men went to 
Kansas, determined to make it a free State. A contest ensued 
which lasted for several years, and was generally called at the 
time "the Border Ruffian War." Reckless and lawless men 
from the Missouri border harassed the Northern settlers. Many 
free State men were brutally murdered. The town of Lawrence 
was sacked and burned in part by an armed force of pro-slavery 
men. A regiment of wild young men from the South was re- 
cruited in Alabama by Colonel Buford, and invaded the Terri- 
tory for the avowed purpose of subjugating the Northern 
settlers. The North supported her emigrants with fresh re- 
enforcements and with consignments of rifles and ammunition. 
Numerous encounters occurred with more or less loss of life. 
At the village of Ossawatomie, a pitched battle was fought, 
wherein 28 Free State men led by John Brown defeated, on the 
open prairie, 56 Border Ruffians led by Captain Pate of Vir- 
ginia. 

In the struggle for Kansas, the South fought against the laws 
of nature. Very little of the territory was adapted for the 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 27 

raising of cotton, and slavery had been found profitable only in 
the cotton regions. Few emigrants from the South went with 
their negroes to the new Territory, while resolute Northern 
farmers and mechanics poured in year after year in large num- 
bers. The slave power then undertook to secure possession of 
Kansas by fraud. At the first election for a Territorial Legis- 
lature, thousands of Missourians crossed the Kansas border and 
voted. The Free State men disregarded this election, held 
another, and organized a legislature of their own, so that for, 
a time there were two legislatures in session. In the same 
manner, two State Constitutions were formed, one at Lecomp- 
ton, by a convention composed of members chosen in great 
part by fraudulent Missouri votes, and one at Lawrence, by a 
convention representing the anti-slavery settlers of the Terri- 
tory. The administration at Washington endeavored to force 
the pro-slavery Constitution upon the people. Great efforts 
were made to this end through the agency of the Federal office- 
holders in the Territory, supported by detachments of Federal 
troops, and these efforts were abandoned only when it became 
evident that the Free State men were in an overwhelming 
majority and were determined to have their rights. The Kan- 
sas War finally degenerated into a series of plundering raids 
by parties of Missourians, but these in time became too haz- 
ardous to be continued. Some Democrats in Congress opposed 
the course of the administration toward Kansas and were called 
Anti-Lecompton Democrats, but the bulk of the party stood 
steadily on the side of the South. Kansas, with its free Con- 
stitution, was refused admission to the Union. 

Every incident of the long struggle in Kansas was promptly 
reported in the Northern papers, and the anti-slavery element 
followed the conflict with intense interest, and looked upon 
the men who took their lives in their hands and went to the 
new Territory to secure it for freedom as heroes of a just and 
patriotic cause. It was the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and the 
struggle between freedom and slavery beyond the Missouri 
which finally crystallized the anti-slavery sentiment of the 
North into the organization known as the Republican Party. 



HISTORY OF TEE REPUBLIC AS Pjl 



CHAPTER XL 

THE OSTESD MANIFESTO, THE DEED 800TT DECISION. A5D THE 
ATTACK OS CHARLES SOESER. 

Three events occurring in the period we are now describing 
contributed powerfully towards increasing the alarm in the 
h at the purposes and spirit of the slave power. In August, 
1851 Be retary of State William L. Marcy secretly directed 
James Buchanan. John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soule. our minis- 
fit London, Paris, and Madrid, respectively, to meet in 
some European city and confer about the best method of get- 
7 be in of Cuba. The conference took place at Ostend, 
and resulted in a dispatch to our Government, known as the 
:end Maim st ~ hieh recommended the immediate pur- 
Juha. and threatened Spain with a forcible seizure of 
the island in case she should refuse to sell it The purpose of 
the Cuban annexation scheme thus developed was to prevent 
-land from ever becoming a free republic like San Domin- 
nd to make out of it one or more slave States to re-enforce 
-lave power in Congress. Nothing came of the manifesto, 
the resulting anger of European nations and the increased 
determination created in the North to oppose the schemes of 
the pro-slavery lea 

The Supreme Court of the United States at this time was 
thoroughly in sympathy with the projects of the pro-sl& 
Democracy. The leaders of that party determined by a bold 
cut the Gk»rdian knot of controversy as to the power 
of the Governine:: very in the Territories, and for this 

purpose they procured from the court what was known as the 
Dred Scott decision. . Dred Scott was a negro belonging to an 
army officer who had taken him into a free State. This act en- 
titled the slave to his liberty, and when he was afterward taken 
back to Missouri he sued for his freedom. The case was carried 
up to the Supreme Court and a majority of the judges decided 
that persons of A frican blood were never thought of or spoken 
of except as property when the Constitution was formed, and 
were not referred to by the Declaration of Independence, which 
that all men are created free and entitled to life, liberty, 
and the p»ursuit of happiness. Such persons, the court de- 
clared, had no si :»uld not sue in any court, 
and were so far inferior that thev had no rights that a white 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 29 

man was bound to respect. Proceeding then to the question of 
slavery in the Territories, the court, through its Chief -Justice, 
Eoger B. Taney, held that the clause of the Constitution which 
says that " Congress shall have power to dispose of and make 
all needful regulations respecting the territory or other property 
belonging to the United States," applied only to territory that 
belonged to the United States when the Constitution was 
framed, and that in all other territory the slaveholder had the 
right to take his slaves, and Congress had no right to prevent 
him. This partisan decision was practically agreed to in 1855, 
but was held back until after the campaign of 1856, and made 
public early in 1857. It was designed to prohibit Congress 
from making any laws respecting slavery in the Territories, 
and to exclude all of the inhabitants of the United States of 
African blood, or mixed blood, from all of the privileges of citi- 
zenship, so far as such privileges were guaranteed and protected 
by the Federal Government. The decision shocked the human- 
ity of the North, but was received in the South with great sat- 
isfaction. The slaveholders thought that they had at last 
secured from an authority that could not be disputed an abso- 
lute endorsement of their most extreme theories and had thus 
thrown over the institution of slavery the protecting shield of 
the highest tribunal in the land. They little dreamed of what 
the future had in store for them. 

In May, 1856, a brutal attack was made upon Charles Sumner, 
a Senator from Massachusetts, by Preston Brooks, a Represent- 
ative from South Carolina. Mr. Sumner had made a speech 
upon the Kansas question, in which he had sharply criticised 
the State of South Carolina and had reflected somewhat severe- 
ly upon Butler, one of her Senators. After the Senate had ad- 
journed he was sitting at his desk engaged in writing, when 
Brooks approached him from behind, felled him to the floor 
with a blow from a heavy cane, and continued to beat him 
about the head till he was unconscious. A South Carolina mem- 
ber named Keitt and a Virginia member named Edmonson 
stood by at the time to prevent interference with the dastardly 
outrage. Mr. Sumner was severely injured and never fully re- 
covered his former health. A disease of the spine ensued, and 
he was obliged to resort to a painf ul form of treatment which 
kept him for two years out of his seat in the Senate. The outrage 
produced great indignation throughout the North, which was 
intensified by the ovations paid to the ruffian Brooks when he 
returned home to South Carolina. 



30 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

CHAPTER XTT 

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY — CAMPAIGN OF 1S56. 

The necessity for the organization of a national party to re- 
sist the encroachments of slavery was felt throughout the 
North immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill. Events had already shaped the platform for such a party. 
It was in all men's minds, and might have been f ormulated in a 
single sentence, ''The freedom of the Territories from the curse 
of slavery." Interference with slavery in the States where it 
existed by virtue of State law had not been thought of. save by 
the Abolitionists, who did not count as a political force. The 
men who were prepared to join a new party organization deter- 
mined that slavery should be wedged in within the region 
where it already existed, and that no protection should be 
given by Federal law to property in slaves in the States whose 
laws declared that no such property should exist. The ele- 
ments prepared for crystallization into a new party were the 
late Free Soilers. the anti-slavery Whigs, and a small number 
of Democrats calling themselves anti-Nebraska men. The 
question of when the Republican Party first originated, and 
who gave it its name, has been much disputed, but within 
recent years it has come to be pretty generally acknowl- 
edged that the Michigan State Convention, held at Jackson, 
early in June, 1854, was the first State representative body to 
take the name of Republican. The title was suggested in a 
letter from Horace Greeley to a delegate to that convention. 
This letter was shown to the late Senator Howard and several 
other influential men. The suggestion was deemed a good 
one, and the name was formally adopted in the resolutions of 
the convention. A few weeks later it was adopted by State 
conventions in Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and 
Iowa. In most of the New England States, in Pennsylvania, 
and in the entire South, the Whig Party still kept alive and 
ran tickets that year. The success of the Republicans in all 
the States where they ran straight tickets of their own gave 
a great impetus to the further extension of the party. It won 
its first national triumph in the House of Representatives elected 
in 1S54. which convened in December, 1855, when the Republi- 
can candidate for Speaker, N. P. Banks of Massachusetts, was 
elected after a long struggle. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 31 

In a single year, the Republican Party had carried most of 
the Northern States and had secured a controlling influence in 
the lower house of Congress. Its leaders were mostly men of 
anti-slavery convictions from the old Whig Party, like Fessen- 
den, Sumner, Greeley, Seward, Chase, Wade, and Chandler, but 
there were among them several former Democrats. No account 
was made of old political affiliations, however, and the only 
test of membership was opposition to the encroachments of the 
slave power. In 1855, the Republicans strengthened their 
State organizations and were successful in most of the Northern 
States. The Whig Party gave some last feeble signs of life in 
Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Ohio. At the 
South, the Whigs almost in a mass merged themselves into the 
Know-Nothing or American organization. Conservative men 
in that section, opposed to reopening the slavery controversy, 
did not venture to ally themselves with the Republicans of the 
North, but took refuge in the American Party, where they were 
able for a brief time to combat the ultra pro-slavery element. 

Thus far the Republicans had no national organization. On 
the 22d of February, 1856, the first Republican National Con- 
vention was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its purpose was 
to better organize the party and to prepare the way for the 
Presidential campaign. A second convention, to nominate a 
President and Vice-President, met in Philadelphia on the 17th 
of June, and was presided over by Henry S. Lane, of Indiana. 
John C. Fremont, the intrepid Western explorer, was nomi- 
nated for President on the first ballot, receiving 359 votes, to 
196 for John McLean. William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, 
received 259 votes for Vice-President on an informal ballot, to 
110 for Abraham Lincoln, and 180 scattering. Mr. Dayton was 
then unanimously nominated. The platform welcomed to the 
party all who were opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise and the extension of slavery in the Territories, and who 
favored the admission of Kansas as a free State. It demanded 
the prohibition of slavery in all of the Territories of the United 
States, and denied the authority of Congress or a Territorial 
Legislature to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory, 
freedom being the public law of the national domain under the 
Constitution. It asserted the right and duty of Congress to 
prohibit in all Territories those twin relics of barbarism, slavery 
and polygamy. 

The Democratic Convention met in Cincinnati on the 2d 
of June, and nominated James Buchanan for President on the 



32 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

17th ballot. . The voting at first was close between Buchanan 
and Pierce, Douglas having a small following. Toward the 
end, all the opposition to Buchanan centred on Douglas. The 
nominee for Vice-President was John C. Breckinridge of Ken- 
tucky. The platform denounced all attempts to prohibit slav- 
ery in the Territories or the District of Columbia by legisla- 
tion, and all objection to the admission of a new State on the 
ground that it established slavery. It revived the Kentucky 
and Virginia resolutions of 1797 and 1798, which contained an 
assertion of extreme States rights doctrines. It also recog- 
nized the right to maintain slavery in any part of the public 
domain, and promised the faithful execution of the fugitive- 
slave law. 

The Know-Nothings, now calling themselves Americans, met 
in Philadelphia, on the 22d of February, and nominated for 
President, Millard Fillmore, of New York, and for Vice-Presi- 
dent, Andrew Jackson Donelson, of Tennessee. Their plat- 
form demanded that none but natives should hold office and 
that foreigners should not vote until they had lived twenty-one 
years in the country. On the 17th of September an insignifi- 
cant remnant of the once powerful Whig Party convened in 
Baltimore and ratified the nomination of Mr. Fillmore. Their 
meeting attracted very little public attention. 

The Presidential contest of 1S56 was exceedingly animated in 
all of the Northern States. Colonel Fremont, although without 
any record as a politician, proved an exceedingly popular can- 
didate. The Republicans carried every Northern State except 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and California, 
and gave to their ticket 111 electoral votes. The Americans 
carried but one State, Maryland. Buchanan's electoral vote 
was 171. Of the popular vote, Buchanan received 1,838,169; 
Fremont, 1,311,261; Fillmore, 871.531. Buchanan had there- 
fore a decided plurality, but he lacked 377,629 votes of a major- 
ity over both of his competitors. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

JOHN BROWN'S RAID— HELPERS "IMPENDING CRISIS." 

An event that had a powerful effect in exciting the South. 
and in aggravating the growing sectional feeling in the North, 
took place in 1859. John Brown, who had distinguished him- 
self as a brave Free State leader in the Kansas war. invaded 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 33 

Harper's Ferry, Virginia, on the 17th of October, with an armed 
force consisting of 17 white men and 5 negroes. The invad- 
ers tore up the railroad track, cut the telegraph wires, and 
took possession of the United States Armory ; doing this by the 
authority of God Almighty, they said. Brown issued a proc- 
lamation calling upon the slaves of the South to rise and de- 
mand their liberty. The frightened inhabitants of the place 
appealed to the State authorities to come to their aid, and the 
State called upon the General Government. A force of United 
States marines was promptly despatched to Harper's Ferry, and 
a large body of Virginia militia was soon on the ground. 
Brown and his followers defended themselves in the armory 
building. A sharp conflict ensued. Hemmed in on all sides, 
Brown sent out a flag of truce, but the bearer, Stephens, was 
instantly shot down by the Virginians. One of Brown's men 
was captured by the Virginia militia, dragged out upon the 
railroad bridge, and shot in cold blood. Four of Brown's party 
attempted to escape by crossing the river, but three were mortal- 
ly wounded. Brown made his last stand in an engine house, 
where he repulsed his assailants, who lost two killed and six 
wounded. The fight went on all day ; at night Brown's forces were 
reduced to three un wounded whites besides himself. Eight of his 
men, including two of his sons, were already dead, another lay 
dying, and two were captives, mortally wounded. Next morning 
the marines charged the engine house, battered down the door, 
and captured Brown with his surviving followers. The pur- 
pose of the raid upon Harper's Ferry was to stimulate an insur- 
rectionary movement thro ughout tht South. Brown had drawn 
up a sketch for a provisional government, and had nominated 
several of his followers to the principal executive offices. He 
was held a prisoner for about six weeks, tried at Charlestown, 
Virginia, and hanged on the 2d day of December, exhibiting 
to the last a heroic fortitude and an exalted frame of mind which 
won for him the admiration of even his bitter enemies, the 
Virginians, and excited deep sympathy throughout the North. 
The South was profoundly stirred by this invasion, insignifi- 
cant as it was in its dimensions and its results. The Southern 
people, in their excited frame of mind, undoubtedly believed 
that the John Brown raid had the endorsement of the Eepub- 
lican Party of the North, and was the beginning of an effort to 
destroy slavery by inciting the slaves to a general insurrection. 
The horrible history of the San Domingo massacre had always 
been a terror to the Southern people, and a rumor of a negro 



34 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

rising had, on several occasions in the past, sufficed to throw 
them in a convulsive state of anger and apprehension. It was 
not strange, therefore, that an effort to organize an insurrec- 
tion, led by courageous white men from the North, should 
provoke their fiercest animosity. 

John Brown had few apologists though a great many sym- 
pathizers in the North. His movement was his own secret and 
was not abetted by any body of anti-slavery men. Just how 
great an influence it exercised on the subsequent history of the 
country it would, of course, be impossible to measure, but the 
feelings it produced and the memories it left in the South were 
a principal agency in inclining the Southern people to separate 
from the North and set up a Government of their own. 

A book published about this time on the slavery question 
added to the irritation in the South. It was called ' ' The Im- 
pending Crisis/' and its author was Hinton B,. Helper, a North 
Carolinian, who had migrated to California. The book was 
addressed to the slaveholding whites of the South, and was a 
powerful argument, re-enforced by statistics drawn from 
United States census reports, to prove that slavery cursed the 
industries of the Southern States. The poverty of those States 
in respect to accumulated wealth and agricultural products in 
comparison with the States of the North, was forcibly set forth 
and the non-slaveholding Southern whites were urged to throw 
off the control of the small minority of slaveholders and take 
the affairs of their States into their oav n hands. The circula- 
tion of this book was everywhere prohibited in the South. It 
was regarded as an incendiary dociunent, although it contained 
nothing but calm reasoning and indisputable statistics. Several 
Republican members of the House signed a letter endorsing the 
volume, and their conduct was made the subject of an acrimo- 
nious discussion. At one time a resolution came near passing, 
affirming that no man who recommended the book was fit to be 
Speaker of the House. "The Impending Crisis" had an im- 
mense sale, and though its effect in the South was only to ag- 
gravate the pro-slavery feeling, it opened the eyes of many 
people in the North to the blighting effect of slavery upon 
industry, manufactures, and trade. 



HISTOIiY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 35 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 

The Republicans were not discouraged by their defeat in 
1856. They saw that if they had carried the States of Penn- 
sylvania and Indiana they would have succeeded, and felt that 
they had formed what was destined to be the great party of the 
future, and that their principles would prevail in time. The 
promulgation of the Dred Scott decision immediately after the 
inauguration of Mr. Buchanan gave new vigor to the Republican 
cause, showing as it did that the pro-slavery party intended to 
fully subjugate the whole country and make of it a vast slave 
empire. The conduct of Buchanan in continuing the efforts of 
Pierce to force slavery upon the Territory of Kansas kept alive 
the discussion of the question of the freedom of the Territories 
until the next Presidential election. Buchanan was as subservi- 
ent to the South as Pierce had been. His administration was 
controlled by ultra pro-slavery men, who directed its energies 
to carrying out the schemes of the slave power. 

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas contested 
the State of Illinois for the United States Senatorship, and made 
a memorable canvass which attracted great attention through- 
out the country. Douglas advocated what was known as his 
squatter sovereignty policy, which was that Congress should 
abstain from all legislation as to slavery in the Territories and 
allow the people to settle the question for themselves. Mr. Lin- 
coln advocated the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slav- 
ery in the Territories. Although Lincoln had a majority of the 
popular vote, Douglas had a majority in the Legislature and 
was elected. The South was not satisfied with the Douglas 
squatter sovereignty plan, the theory of the pro-slavery leaders 
being that slavery could not be prohibited in the Territories by 
any power whatever. This theory was repugnant to a great 
majority of the Democrats of the North, and the conflict between 
it and the Douglas theory led to a disruption of the Democratic 
party. The Democratic national convention met at Charleston, 
on the 2*3d of April, 1860, and immediately got into a heated 
controversy upon the subject of slavery. Finally, by a close 
vote, it was resolved that as differences had existed in the party 
as to the nature and extent of the powers of the Territorial Leg- 
islatures and as to the powers and duties of Congress under the 



36 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Constitution, over the institution of slavery within the Terri- 
tories, the Democratic party would abide by the decision of 
the Supreme Court on the question of constitutional law. This 
exceedingly guarded and neutral declaration angered the 
Southern delegates, and most of them withdrew from the con- 
vention. An adjournment was carried until the 18th of June, 
when the convention reassembled in Baltimore. The seceding 
delegates met and adopted an extreme pro-slavery platform, 
and adjourned to assemble in Richmond June 11th. The regu- 
lar convention reassembled in Baltimore and nominated Stephen 
A. Douglas, of Illinois,, for President, and Benjamin Fitzpatrick, 
of Alabama, for Vice-President. Fitzpatrick subsequently de- 
clined, and Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, was substituted 
by the National Committee. The Baltimore Convention affirmed 
Douglas' squatter sovereignty theory. The Bolting Convention 
met in Richmond and adjourned to meet again in Baltimore, 
June 23d, when it adopted the Charleston platform and nomi- 
nated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for President, and 
Joseph Lane, of Oregon, for Vice-President. 

A new party, composed mainly of former members of the 
now dead American party in the South and a few stubborn old 
Whigs in the North, was formed at Baltimore May 9th. It 
took the name of the Constitutional Union party, and nominated 
for President John Bell, of Tennessee, and for Vice-President 
Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. This party declared that it 
recognized no political principles other than the Constitution 
of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of 
the laws. This last phrase was intended to refer to the Fugitive- 
Slave law. The Republican National Convention met in Chicago 
May 16th, 1860. It was generally supposed, prior to the meet- 
ing of the convention, that William H. Seward would be nomi- 
nated for President. He was recognized as the chief leader of 
the new party, and its greatest teacher on the political bear- 
ings of slavery. His principal competitor was Abraham. Lin- 
coln, of Illinois. The other candidates were Simon Cameron, 
of Pennsylvania, Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Edward Bates, 
of Missouri, William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, John McLean, 
of Ohio, and Jacob Collamer, of Vermont. Mr. Seward led on 
the first and second ballot, but the argument that he would 
not be a popular candidate in the States of Pennsylvania, In- 
diana, and Illinois — the States lost by the Republicans in 1856 
— led to the nomination of Lincoln on the third ballot. Hanni- 
bal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President. The 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 3? 

platform was substantially that adopted in 1856. Its chief 
planks were those referring to slavery in the Territories. It 
declared freedom to be the normal condition of the Territories, 
and denounced the new dogma that the Constitution, with its 
own force, carried slavery there. 

In the campaign of 1860 the Kepublicans were united and 
confident, while the Democrats were divided into two factions, 
which fought each other about as vigorously as they did their 
common enemy. These factions were known by the name of 
their leaders, one being called Douglas Democrats, and the 
other Breckinridge Democrats. There were few Douglas men 
in the South and few Breckinridge men in the North. The 
strength of the new Constitutional Union party was almost 
wholly confined to the South. Every free State but New Jersey 
was carried by the Republicans, and in New Jersey the refusal 
of a part of the Douglas men to support the fusion ticket al- 
lowed four of the Lincoln electors to slip in. The electoral vote 
was divided as follows : Lincoln, 180, all from the North ; Breck- 
inridge, 72, all from the South ; Bell, 39, from Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, and Tennessee ; and Douglas, 12, from Missouri and New 
Jersey. The popular vote was, Lincoln, 1,857,610; Douglas, 
1,291,574; Breckinridge, 850,082; Bell, 646,124. 

The very large vote given to Mr. Douglas was due, in some 
part, to his personal popularity. He was the idol of the Demo- 
cratic party of the North, and had the South chosen to give 
him its support, instead of seceding from the convention and 
nominating Breckinridge, he would probably have been 
elected President. With his comparatively moderate views on 
the subject of slavery, which were becoming more and more 
modified in the right direction as he saw the tendency of the 
pro-slavery leaders, it is not unlikely that he would have averted 
or at least postponed the war. 



CHAPTER XV. 



SECESSION — REBELLION — WAR. 



As soon as the election of Lincoln and Hamlin was known 
to be beyond dispute, movements for seceding from the Union 
began in the South. The Southern leaders did not wait to 
learn what the policy of the new administration would be, but 
made haste to break the relations of their States with the Union 



38 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTT. 

and to form a separate government, under the title of the Con- 
federate States of America. As early as December. I860, South 
Carolina seceded ; other States followed during the winter, and 
in February. 1861. a complete Eebel government was organized 
at Montgomery and a Eebel army put into the field. A con- 
siderable party in the Southern States, composed mostly of old 
Whigs, opposed secession, but were overpowered by the more 
active, unscrupulous, and determined supporters of the move- 
ment. During the session of Congress just prior to Mr. Lin- 
coln's inauguration great efforts were made in the way of con- 
ciliatory propositions to induce the Southern States not to re- 
nounce their allegiance to the Union. The Republicans were 
willing to go to the farthest extent possible not involving the 
vital principle of their party that the Territories of the United 
States were free soil by virtue of the Constitution. The plan 
known as the Crittenden Compromise received a large vote in 
both Houses, although opposed by most Republicans. Its prin- 
cipal provision was that all of the territory north of latitude 
36 degrees and 30 minutes should forever be free, and that all 
of the territory south of that line should be given up to slavery. 
Senator Anthony, a Republican, was willing to admit New 
Mexico as a slave State, because slavery already existed there, 
but this was as far as he or any other Republican proposed to 
go concerning the disputed question of the condition of the 
Territories. A series of resolutions, accompanied by a consti- 
tutional amendment, passed both Houses, however, guarantee- 
ing slavery in the States where it existed against any interfer- 
ence on the part of the Federal G-overnnient, and recommending 
the Northern States which had passed laws obstructing the re- 
covery of fugitives to repeal them. A Peace Conference, invited 
by the Legislature of Virginia, sat in Washington in February. 
Thirteen Northern States and seven Southern States were rep- 
resented. Its propositions had no effect in staying the rising 
tide of rebellion. The Southern leaders had fully made up 
their minds to dissolve the Union, and although many of them 
remained in Congress up to the time of Lincoln's inauguration, 
they did so avowedly for the purpose of resisting legislation 
which might be hostile to their section. 

It is not the purpose of this work to trace the history of the 
war for the preservation of the L'nion further than is necessary 
to show the action of the political parties concerning its prose- 
cution. The Republican party was the war party from the 
beginning to the end of the struggle, holding the Union to be 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 39 

a perpetual bond, and not a league of States which could be 
dissolved at the pleasure of any of its members. It also held 
that the Kepublic was indestructible, and that the duty of the 
United States Government was to enforce obedience to its 
authority. 

The Democratic party in the North was in an extremely 
awkward predicament when the storm of war burst upon the 
country. For a whole generation it had maintained the theory 
of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, that the States were 
sovereign and were themselves the judges of the constitution- 
ality of the Federal laws and acts. Out of this theory grew 
logically another, that the Government had no right to coerce 
sovereign States. This was the theory upon which Mr. Bu- 
chanan's administration proceeded during the three months in 
which the Rebellion organized itself throughout the South. It 
continued to be held by a considerable portion of the Northern 
Democracy, but the patriotic feeling which followed the attack 
upon Fort Sumter caused it to be exceedingly unpopular for a 
while, and it was rarely avowed in public during the first year 
of the war. For a time there was but one political party in 
the North, and that was the party of the Union. As the war 
went on, however, and it became evident that it was going to 
be a long struggle and no holiday parade, as many had imag- 
ined, the Democrats took courage and reorganized their party 
as an anti-administration party. They did not avowedly op- 
pose the prosecution of the war at that time ; some of them, 
indeed, insisted that if they were in power they would push it 
more vigorously, but the spirit of their movement was one of 
dissatisfaction with the contest. In 1862, after the disaster to 
our armies on the Peninsula and at the second battle of Bull 
Run, a feeling of discontent arose throughout the North which 
took the form of hostility to the Republican party in the fall 
elections of that year. The Democrats carried the great cen- 
tral belt of States beginning with New York and ending at 
the Mississippi River. Fortunately, in only one State was 
there a Governor to be elected. This was in the State of New 
York, where the Democrats chose Horatio Seymour, by the 
aid of enormous election frauds committed in the City of New 
York. The Republicans were barely able to secure a majority 
in the new House, and were for a time greatly discouraged by 
their reverses and apprehensive that the Democratic tri- 
umphs might lead to the ultimate success of the Rebellion. 
In 1863, however, the capture of Vicksburg by General Grant 



40 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

and the decisive victory at Gettysburg completely turned 
the current of public sentiment. The Republicans recovered 
that year every State they had lost in 1862. Wherever the 
contest was the hottest there their victory was the greatest. 
The great political battle of the year occurred in Ohio, where 
the Dem- a ::- nominated Clement L. Vallandighani f or Gov- 
ernor. He was an avowed opponent of the war and an open 
sympathizer with the South. The majority against him was 
the largest ever given at any election in the State, running 
up to nearly 1 

In 1863, the Democratic party in most of the Northern States 
threw off all pretension of sympathy with the Union cause. On 
this account they were given by the Republicans the name of 
perheads.'" In some parts of the TTest they wore pins 
made of the butternut, to typify their sympathy with the 
South, the Southern soldiers being frequently clad in homespun 
dyed with the juice of that nut. 

A long and bloody riot occurred in the City of Xew York in 
in which thousands of Democrats resisted the draft and 
held possession of many parts of the city for several days, 
murdering a number of people. The Democratic Governor of 
the State. Horatio Seymour, addressed the mob in front of 
City Hall, at the height of the riot, and styled the lawless per- 
sons composing it "my friends." The riot was finally sup- 
ssed by United State troops, after considerable slaughter. 
In the State of Indiana a formidable conspiracy under the title 
of the •• Sons of Liberty."' was organized by the Democratic 
sympathizers with the South, but was suppressed by the vigi- 
lance and courage of Oliver P. Morton, the Republican Gover- 
nor Of til ■: S 

In several of the States the Republicans in 1863 dropped their 
party name and took that of the Union party- m order to 
the feelings of the war Democrats who desired to co-operate 
with tlieni. The voting force of these war Democrats was com- 
paratively small, but among them were a number of men of 
undoubted patriotism and high position in the country. Most 
of them continued to co-operate with the Republican party 
during and after the war. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 41 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVES. 

The Republican party did not enter the war with the purpose 
of abolishing slavery. A few far-sighted men saw that the 
struggle must end either in the separation of the South or the 
freedom of the slaves, but the masses of the party did not look 
beyond the suppression of the Rebellion and the preservation of 
the Union. President Lincoln said that if he could save the 
Union with slavery he would save it, and that if he could save 
it without slavery he would save it. As the war went on, the 
folly of recognizing and protecting an institution which gave 
the rebels a large force of laboring men to stay at home and 
raise food for their armies became plainly apparent, and there 
was a general demand for the abolition of slavery as a war meas- 
ure. It was not, however, till April, 1862, that slavery was abol- 
ished in the District of Columbia, nor till June, 1864, that the 
Fugitive Slave laws were repealed. In the early military opera- 
tions against the Rebellion great care was taken not to excite 
insurrections among the slaves, and the negroes who came into 
our lines were treated as contraband property, so as not to be 
restored to their masters. On September 22d, 1862, President 
Lincoln issued his first proclamation of emancipation, which was, 
in effect, a threat to the States then in rebellion that they would 
lose their slaves unless they returned to the Union. He declared 
that on January 1st following all persons held as slaves in any 
State which should be then in rebellion should be then and for- 
ever after free. On January 1st, 1863, no rebel State having 
returned to the Union, he issued his second proclamation, des- 
ignating the States and parts of States in rebellion, and order- 
ing and declaring that all persons held as slaves in such regions 
"are and shall be free," and pledging the Government to main- 
tain their freedom. ' ' On this measure, " said Lincoln, "I in- 
voke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious 
favor of God. " This celebrated proclamation professed to be a 
war measure, adopted by authority of the President as the 
commander-in chief of the army and navy. 

The Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution prohibiting 
slavery in the United States passed the Senate in April, 1864, 
and the House in January, 1865, but was not ratified by a suffi- 
cient number of States to make it valid until nearly a year 



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HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 43 

justice, humanity, and material prosperity. The convention 
nominated for President General George B. McClellan, whose 
half-hearted, dilatory course while in command of the army of 
the Potomac was largely responsible for whatever failure had 
characterized the war up to that time. George H. Pendleton, 
of Ohio, was nominated for Vice-President. The platform 
crippled the Democratic party in the canvass, for scarcely had 
it been published when news came that Sherman had taken 
Atlanta, and that Farragut had carried the defences of Mobile. 
In the face of such victories as these the declaration that the 
war was a failure sounded absurd and treasonable. 

In the canvass of 1864 the Democrats attacked the adminis- 
tration for exceeding its constitutional powers in suspending the 
habeas corpus and imprisoning rebel sympathizers and agents 
in the North without trial. They did not openly avow their 
old theory, that the States could not be coerced ; but they had 
a great deal to say about the ' ' bloody and endless war, brought 
on by the anti-slavery agitators in the North. " They denounced 
the emancipation proclamation and appealad to the prejudice 
against the negroes, still very strong in the North, by asserting 
that the war was an abolition war, carried on not to restore 
the Union but to free the slaves. The Republicans had practi- 
cally but one argument to make, and that was, that it was the 
duty of every patriot to sustain the Government in its efforts 
to crush the Rebellion and save the Union. The result of the 
election was the success of the Republicans by very large ma- 
jorities. Mr. Lincoln had the electoral vote of every State not 
in the rebellion, except Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey. 
He received 212 electoral votes against 21 cast for McClellan. 
His popular vote was 2,213,665 against 1,802,237. The success 
of the Republicans in this critical campaign assured the ulti- 
mate triumph of the Union arms in the field, confirmed the 
emancipation of the slaves, and opened the way to the termi- 
nation of the war. Had the Democrats prevailed, there is 
little reason to doubt that the war would have ended by a 
recognition of the independence of the rebel States. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SECURING THE FRUITS OF THE WAR — THE STRUGGLE WITH 
ANDREW JOHNSON. 

After the Republican party had carried the war through to 
a successful issue, destroying upon the battle-field the doctrine 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAS PASTY. 



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HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 45 

After having emancipated the slaves, the Democrats held that 
Congress had nothing more to do with them. The temporary- 
go vernments organized by the whites in several of the Southern 
States proceeded to pass codes of black laws, which reduced 
the negroes to a condition of serfdom, differing practically but 
very little from the old condition of slavery. President Johnson 
did not avowedly go over to the Democratic party : he kept Mr. 
Seward and several other Eepublicans in his Cabinet, but his 
policy toward the South was essentially a Democratic policy, 
and was sustained by very few people in Congress or the coun- 
try except the Democrats. A small body of office-holders stood 
by him in order to retain their places, and became popularly 
known as "the bread and butter brigade." In 1867, the Re- 
publicans passed a series of acts, known as the Reconstruction 
laws, providing for the establishment of new State governments 
in the South. These laws allowed every man to vote, black or 
white, except such as had previously taken an oath to support 
the Constitution of the United States and had participated in 
the Rebellion. This limitation disfranchised a very large por- 
tion of the active and influential white men. President John- 
son vetoed the Reconstruction acts, and they were passed over 
his veto, the Republicans having at that time and throughout 
his administration a two-thirds majority in both Houses. 

The conduct of Johnson created a good deal of irritation and 
bad feeling. He was regarded as a traitor to the Republican party 
and the stubbornness with which he clung to his idea of the 
rights of the Southern States under the Constitution was gener- 
ally believed among the Republicans to arise from a settled pur- 
pose on his part to betray his party and to destroy the substan- 
tial results of its victory over the Rebellion. The intense dislike 
and strong suspicion of Johnson which animated the greater 
portion of the Republican party resulted in the passage of ar- 
ticles of impeachment against him, on the 22d of February, 
1868. The specifications were based on the President's illegal 
removal of Edwin M. Stanton from the office of the Secretary 
of War, his expressions in party speeches of contempt of Con- 
gress, and his hindrance of the execution of some of its acts. 
The trial began in the Senate March 23d, and lasted nearly two 
months, attracting the closest attention of the whole country. 
Johnson was acquitted for lack of a two-thirds majority against 
him, the vote on the several articles of impeachment standing, 
guilty 35, not guilty 19. A few Rej)ublicans, led by Mr. Fes- 
senden, of Maine, not believing him guilty of an offence war- 



46 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

ranting his removal from office, voted with the Democrats for 
his acquittal. The general effect of his obstinate resistance to 
Congress was to strengthen the Republican party, and the men 
that deserted its ranks to follow him were so few in number 
that they were scarcely missed. At one time Johnson appeared 
to contemplate the formation of a new party, of which he was 
to be the leader ■ but he ended, after his term of office closed, 
in joining the Democratic party, which sent him to the Senate 
from Tennessee. 

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted 
in June, 1866, by Republican votes exclusively, in both Houses 
of Congress. The amendment made the freed negroes citizens 
of the United States and of the States in which they lived, and 
prohibited any State from abridging or limiting the privileges 
or immunities of citizens. It left each State to regulate the 
right of voting, but if a State excluded any of its citizens on 
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, it lost 
its representative and electoral strength proportionately. The 
amendment also provided that no person should hold office in 
the United States or any State who, not having taken the oath 
to support the Constitution of the United States, and had joined 
in the Rebellion ; but Congress might remove this disability by 
a vote of two-thirds of each branch. It provided, further, that 
neither the United States nor any State should assume or pay 
any debt contracted in aid of the Rebellion, or for any of the 
losses from the emancipation of the slaves. The Democratic 
party vehemently opposed this amendment, and it was not 
fully ratified by the requisite number of States until July, 1868. 
Long after its ratification the Democrats were in the habit of 
condemning it as revolutionary, unconstitutional, null and void. 
Subsequent experience did not justify all of its provisions. 
The section creating a class of persons under disabilities in the 
South was after a time deemed unwise by a large majority of 
the Republicans, and was greatly modified by successive am- 
nesty measures. 

In 1866, the Civil Rights act was passed, providing severe 
penalties against any person who under color of any law or 
ordinance should attempt to deprive the freedinen of equal 
rights or subject them to any penalty or prohibition different 
from those to which the whites were subjected. This act as 
well as Amendment XIV was vetoed by President Johnson, op- 
posed by the Democrats, and passed by the Republicans over 
that veto and in spite of that opposition. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 47 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1868. 

The Presidential campaign of 1868 was fought upon the issues 
growing out of the Reconstruction acts of Congress, the Amend- 
ments to the Constitution, and the suffrage and citizenship they 
conferred upon the colored race. The Republican National 
Convention met in Chicago, May 20th, and nominated General 
Ulysses S. Grant for President by acclamation. A sharp con- 
test took place over the Vice-Presidency. The first ballot re- 
sulted as follows : Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, 115 ■ Benjamin 
F. Wade, of Ohio, 147; Reuben E. Fenton, of New York, 126; 
Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, 119; Andrew G. Curtin. of 
Pennsylvania, 51; Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, 28; James M. 
Speed, of Kentucky, 22; James Harlan, of Iowa, 16; J. A. J. 
Creswell, of Maryland, 14; W. D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, 4; 
S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, 6. On the fifth ballot Schuyler Col- 
fax was nominated, receiving 541 votes. The chief features of 
the platform were the indorsements of the constitutional amend- 
ments securing the political and civil equality of the blacks and 
of the reconstruction acts of Congress. 

The Democratic National Convention met in New York, 
July 4th, and nominated Horatio Seymour, of New York, for 
President, and Francis P. Blair, of Missouri, for Vice-Presi- 
dent. An attempt was made to liberalize the party and induce 
it to cease its opposition to the results of the war, by the 
nomination of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, who stood a little 
aloof from the Republican party and held rather a neutral 
attitude. It was unsuccessful. Moderate ideas prevailed, 
however, in the platform, which was cautiously worded so as 
not to offend a considerable number of Democrats who were 
in favor of what was called ' ' accepting the situation. " Among 
the candidates for the Presidency before the convention was 
General W. S. Hancock, who received a large vote from men 
who desired to make use of his military reputation as an offset 
to that of General Grant. The majority of the convention 
were not willing, however, to nominate any man whose record 
of hostility to all of the Republican measures during the last 
ten years was in any way doubtful. The Democratic campaign 
was so bad a failure that before it closed the leading Demo- 



48 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

cratic newspaper organ in New York demanded a change in 
the ticket as the only way of securing the possibility of 
success. General Grant was elected by a popular vote of 
3,012,833 against 2,703,249. He carried all the States except 
Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jer- 
sey. New York, and Oregon. Three States — Virginia, Missis- 
sippi, and Texas — had not gone through with the process of re- 
construction and therefore had no vote. Of the electoral votes 
Grant received 214, and Seymour 80. After this overwhelming 
defeat a growing sentiment in favor of accepting the results of 
the war and ceasing the hopeless contest against the inevitable 
took possession of the Democratic party. The election was. 
exceedingly important in its influence upon the history of the 
country. Had the Republicans been defeated the whole policy 
of equal suffrage and citizenship would probably have been 
overturned. That policy was completed and firmly secured a 
year later by the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
which provided that neither the United States nor any State 
should abridge the right of any citizen to vote on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The ratifica- 
tion of this amendment by the requisite number of States was 
proclaimed March 20th, 1870. 



CHAPTER XX. 

CONDITION OF THE SOUTH — CARPET-BAG-GO VERN3IENT — THE 
KU-KLUX KLAN CONSPIRACY. 

Encouraged by President Johnson's opposition to the Recon- 
struction acts to believe that those acts would in the end be set 
aside, the white people of the States which had joined the Re- 
bellion very generally refrained from taking part in the elec- 
tions under them, and thus the newly enfranchised negroes 
became suddenly possessed of almost unlimited political power. 
With them acted a few respectable white natives who had con- 
scientiously opposed the war, a few enterprising Northern emi- 
grants who went South to invest their means and better their 
fortunes, and a few adventurers attracted by the prospect of 
oflice. This was a poor foundation on which to rear a stable 
structure of local government. The mass of the white population 
looked upon the negroes as they would upon so many cattle or 
horses of which they had been robbed by the National Govern- 
ment, and regarded them in their quality of voters and citizens 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 40 

with undisguised hatred and contempt. The State Govern- 
ments established under the new order of things were the sub- 
jects of constant insult in the Southern papers, and were despised 
and detested by the great mass of the native tax-paying people. 
The poor whites were fully as hostile as the better classes. To 
some extent the new governments merited the condemnation 
they received. Most of them were ignorant and rapacious, 
borrowing and wasting large sums of money, raising heavy 
taxes, and creating numberless scandals. It made no difference, 
however, what was the character of the men connected with 
these governments— they were all denounced as thieves. North- 
ern white men who had settled in the South, whether they held 
office or not, were stigmatized as " carpet-baggers," and every 
native white man who joined the Eepublican party was de- 
nounced as a " scallawag," and cut off from all social relations 
with his neighbors. The carpet-bag governments, as they were 
called, could not have existed for a moment without the sup- 
port of the national authority. Troops were stationed in every 
capital and principal city throughout the South, for the pur- 
pose of awing the disaffected people and compelling obedience 
to the local authorities. Even these means were not wholly 
effective, however. A secret organization sprang up as if by 
magic in all parts of the South, whose members were exclu- 
sively white men, hostile to the new order of things, and sworn 
to accomplish the destruction of negro rule. This organization 
was called the Ku-Klux Klan. Its ostensible purpose at first 
was to keep the blacks in order and prevent them from com- 
mitting small depredations upon the property of the whites, 
but its real motives were essentially political. The members 
met in secret conclaves, and rode about the country at night 
wearing long gowns of black or scarlet cloth, with hideous 
masks or hoods enveloping their heads. They murdered many 
of the negro leaders, and in pursuance of their scheme for over- 
awing the colored population took thousands of poor blacks out 
of their cabins at night and brutally flogged them. In some 
neighborhoods scarcely a colored man escaped a visitation 
from these terrible midnight riders. The negroes were inva- 
riably required to promise not to vote the Republican ticket, 
and threatened with death if they broke their promises. In 
some places the Ku-Klux Klan assaulted Republican officials in 
their houses or offices or upon the public roads ; in others they 
attacked the meetings of negroes and dispersed them. Their 
action took almost every form of lawlessness, and was adopted 



50 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

with the single purpose of breaking down the authority of the 
Eepublican State and local governments, and preparing the 
way for a Democratic victory at the elections. The Ku-Klux 
Klan order and its variations extended throughout the entire 
South. In some localities it was called by other names, such as 
the "White League," or the "Knights of the White Camelia," 
and sometimes its members appeared without disguise and 
made their murderous attacks upon their political opponents 
in broad daylight. In such cases it was given out by the South- 
ern newspapers that a riot had occurred, in which the blacks 
were the aggressors. Wherever the facts were obtained by the 
investigations of committees of Congress, it was found that 
this explanation was a false one, and that the whites were al- 
ways the attacking party. 

The Ku-Klux Klan were particularly active in the Northern 
counties of South Carolina, and these counties were selected by 
President Grant for the enforcement of an act of Congress, 
passed by the Eepublicans for the purpose of suppressing these 
treasonable and murderous organizations. The habeas corpus 
was suspended by Executive order in the five counties referred 
to, a considerable body of troops was stationed there, and large 
numbers of arrests were made by the soldiers. Nearly three 
hundred Ku-Klux were imprisoned at one time at Yorkville, 
South Carolina, under military guard. Their disguises and other 
articles were captured, and several of them made full confession 
of the atrocities in which they had been engaged. A few were 
selected for trial and were convicted and sentenced to impris- 
onment in the Albany Penitentiary. The rest were released 
on their pledges of good behavior. The result of these severe 
measures was to break up the Ku-Klux organizations through- 
out the South. Hostility to negro suffrage and Eepublican 
government subsequently took other forms of violence, but the 
whipping and killing of defenceless people by masked mid- 
night riders was abandoned. 

The Eepublicans of the North earnestly sustained the meas- 
ures of the Government for the punishment of conspiracy and 
of crime, and for the defense of the rights of their brethren in 
the South. The inefficiency and corruption which characterized 
most of the Southern State governments produced, however, 
considerable effect upon the Northern mind, and in course of 
time a large portion of the Northern Eepublicans grew weary 
of the effort to support those governments by armed force. 
Thus there came about a division in the party, one element 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 51 

believing it to be the duty of the administration to continue its 
policy of interference in Southern affairs, and the other con- 
tending that the difficult problem of good government and equal 
rights in that section could be best worked out by the Southern 
people themselves, without any outside pressure. The stories 
of Southern outrages grew monotonous and wearisome. Many 
people doubted their authenticity, because from their own ex- 
perience in the law-abiding communities of the North they could 
not conceive of a state of things so wholly foreign to anything 
they had observed at home. It did not seem reasonable that 
men should be guilty of such barbarous acts as were done in 
the South for the purpose of gaining political power. All re- 
ference to those acts and arguments drawn from them were 
characterized, in the political parlance of the time, as "waving 
the bloody shirt," and lost their effect upon the public mind. 
Nevertheless only a small part of the truth concerning the state 
of affairs in the South between 1867 and 1876 was ever made 
known. It is not extravagant to assert that more men lost their 
lives during that period for the sole crime of being Republicans 
than fell on any one battle-field of the war. 

In the course of eight years of President Grant's administra- 
tion the white Democrats of the South succeeded in getting 
possession of all of their States except South Carolina, Florida, 
and Louisiana — overcoming the Republican majorities by a sys- 
tem of intimidation, violence, and fraud. The three remain- 
ing States passed into their hands immediately after the ac- 
cession of President Hayes. President Grant's policy toward 
the South was not uniform and consistent. At times he was 
exceedingly firm in his defense of the so-called carpet-bag gov- 
ernments, but at other times he was yielding or indifferent, 
and allowed the processes for the destruction of those govern- 
ments to go on without interference. Toward the close of his 
official career he came to the conclusion that it was unwise 
longer to attempt to support by Federal bayonets authority 
which was obnoxious to the influential and intelligent tax- 
paying classes of the South. In this conclusion a large portion 
of the Republicans sympathized, but their opinion did not in 
the least modify their feelings of condemnation of the methods 
by which the Southern Democrats had overturned the Repub- 
lican State governments in that section. 



52 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

DEFENDING THE NATIONAL HONOR AND THE PUBLIC CREDIT. 

It is now time to refer to a portion of the career of the Re- 
publican party which reflected great honor upon it, and entitled 
it anew to the respect and gratitude of the country. At the 
end of the war the United States owed an enormous bonded 
debt. In addition it had outstanding a large volume of paper 
currency, issued with the understanding that it should be re- 
deemed in coin as soon as the Government was able to do so. 
In 1867, after the floating obligations remaining from the war 
had been gathered in and funded, the question of how to deal 
with the debt and the currency was taken up in earnest by the 
Republicans in Congress. Their plans met with vehement op- 
position from a large portion of the Democratic party. A new 
and preposterous theory was advanced, to the effect that the 
notes of the Government, called greenbacks, were actual money 
instead of promises to pay money, and that the bonded debt of 
the United States could be lawfully and honorably discharged 
with these notes. This theory started in the West and was 
called at first "Pendletonism," from the fact that Pendleton, 
the Democratic candidate for Vice-President in 1864, was 
among its early and prominent advocates. It was claimed by 
the supporters of this theory that as greenbacks were real 
money the country ought to have a large supply of them. They 
favored an immediate issue of hundreds and even thousands of 
millions of dollars. All of the bonds that were not specifically 
made payable in coin they proposed to pay off at once in green- 
backs, and thus stop the interest upon them. The paper money 
idea soon developed into a great popular mania in the West. 
Many Republicans were carried away by it, but the majority of 
the party firmly resisted it. Not much headway was made by 
this dangerous and dishonest heresy east of the Alleghany 
Mountains, but beyond that line, clear through to the far West, 
the excitement raged for several years. It must be said, in 
credit of the Democrats of the East, that they gave no assistance 
to the greenback idea. As a party, however, the Democrats 
may truthfully be said to have advocated it, since the great bulk 
of the Democratic representation in Congress came from the 
West and the South, where the mania was widely prevalent. 
However much praise the few Democrats who opposed the 



HISTOR Y OF THE REPUBLICAN PA R T J ". 53 

scheme are entitled to, it is certain that it could not have been 
defeated had not the Republican party as a national organiza- 
tion set its face firmly against it. 

Many of the advocates of inflation, having cut loose from the 
principles of common honesty, soon became repudiationists, and 
formed a party by themselves, called the Greenback party. 
They proposed to pay off the whole of the debt in greenbacks, 
and never redeem the greenbacks, but let them wear out and 
perish. They even went so far as to pass resolutions in their 
conventions declaring that all taxation should cease and that 
the Government should support itself by issuing paper money. 
A constant struggle against inflation schemes was kept up by 
the Republicans in Congress for more than a decade, and was 
only ended by the successful resumption of specie payments on 
the first of January, 1879. In all of this time the Republican 
party was vigilant and firm in defending the national honor, 
and preventing its credit. from suffering by the repeated as- 
saults upon it which came from the Democratic and Greenback 
parties. The party which saved the Union and abolished slav- 
ery was called upon to save the credit and honor of the coun- 
try, and prevent its currency from becoming worthless, and it 
nobly responded to the call. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE LIBERAL DEFECTION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF 1872. 

Considerable dissatisfaction was felt in the Republican 
party at the course of President Grant's administration. A 
small element of conscientious men, many of whom had aided 
in forming the party, believed that his policy toward the South 
was unwise, and that it was time to inaugurate an era of peace, 
reconciliation and good feeling. They also wanted to see a 
policy of civil service reform established, by which merit should 
be the test for public office, and Government officials should 
stick to their legitimate business, and not devote their time to 
managing caucuses and conventions in the interest of party 
leaders who had secured them their appointments. 

Grant's project for annexing San Domingo created a good 
deal of opposition, and many of his appointments to office were 
.of a character not to commend themselves to the public judg- 
ment. An open breach occurred between him and several Re- 
publican leaders in Congress, chief among whom were Senators 



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HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 55 

they nominated a ticket of their own there was not the slight- 
est chance of electing it. If they indorsed the Liberal Republi- 
can ticket they would have to abandon all of the ideas for 
which they had been contending since 1860. Their convention 
met at Baltimore in July and chose the latter horn of the di- 
lemma. In spite of the bald inconsistency of the proceeding, 
the party which had defended slavery and opposed the sup- 
pression of the Rebellion nominated as its candidate for Presi- 
dent a most conspicuous antagonist of slavery, a life-long op- 
ponent of the South, and a zealous advocate of all measures 
which had been adopted for crushing the Rebellion and giving 
freedom and citizenship to the blacks. This apparent conver- 
sion of a great party and this acknowledgment of the error of 
its ways would have been sublime if it had been sincere, but the 
object of most of the Democratic leaders was only to obtain 
office and political patronage. Horace Greeley made no pledges 
to them,^and he avowed not the slightest alteration in hi 3 opin- 
ions on the issues of the time. They hoped, however, that if 
they succeeded in electing him a sense of gratitude would in- 
duce him to give them place and power. The campaign was a 
very animated one at first, but after the Republicans had car- 
ried North Carolina in August and Pennsylvania in October it 
became evident that the Greeley coalition could not win, and 
thenceforward the Democratic and Liberal canvass lost all 
vitality. A large number of the Republicans left their party to 
follow their old anti-slavery leader, Horace Greeley, but their 
votes were more than counterbalanced by those of Democrats 
who refused to support him. This class had a candidate of 
their own in Charles O'Conor, who was nominated by a conven- 
tion held at Louisville. He received but a small vote, however. 
Most anti-Greeley Democrats contented themselves with staying 
at home on election day. Some of them voted for Grant, to 
show in a marked manner their hostility to the course of their 
party. Grant carried all the States except Georgia, Kentucky, 
Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. His popular vote 
was 3,597,070. The vote for Greeley was 2,834,079. O'Conor 
received 29,408 votes, and Black, the candidate of the Prohibi- 
tion Temperance men, 5,608. Horace Greeley died before the 
electoral colleges met. The electoral vote as cast by the col- 
leges' was as follows: Grant, 286; Hendricks, 42; Brown, 18; C. 
J. Jenkins, 2; David Davis, 1; uncounted because cast for 
Horace Greeley, 17. 
The Liberal defection seriously weakened the Republican 



56 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

party in the State campaigns of the three following years, but 
in 1876 the breach was fully healed, and with the exception of 
a few leaders who joined the Democrats the whole body of Lib- 
erals returned to their old party allegiance in the Presidential 
campaign of that year. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

PRESIDENT GRANT'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION— CAMPAIGN OF 1876. 

Republican divisions continued to a considerable extent 
during the second administration of President Grant. The dis- 
satisfied members of the party did not, however, form any po- 
litical organization, but contented themselves with holding 
themselves aloof from the State campaigns. Several painful 
scandals affecting the appointees and personal friends of Presi- 
dent Grant added to the unpopularity of the administration. In 
1874, the f eeling of distrust and dislike culminated and resulted 
in an astonishing series of Democratic victories at the State and 
Congressional elections. A large number of Northern States 
that had been steadfastly Republican were carried by the Dem- 
ocrats. Even Massachusetts, which had given heavy Republi- 
can majorities ever since the party was formed, elected a Dem- 
ocratic Governor. In short, there was a reaction against the 
Republicans throughout the country of such magnitude and 
importance that many would-be prophets predicted the speedy 
death of the party, asserting that its mission was fulfilled, its 
work done, and its career closed. The Democrats elected a 
majority of the members of the National House of Representa- 
tives, and thus in the following year came into possession of 
one branch of Congress for the first time since 1860. 

It was not long before the Republicans who had deserted 
their party and thus helped its enemy to a substantial victory 
began to realize that they had made a grave mistake. They 
saw that to trust the party of slavery and rebellion with the 
power in the National Government was to run the risk of seri- 
ously compromising the results of the war. The State elections 
of 1875 showed the result of this conviction, for most of the old 
Republican States which had been lost in 1874 were regained. 
An exceedingly thorough and brilliant canvass was made in 
Ohio upon the financial question. The Democrats of that State 
fully indorsed what was known as the soft-money idea. They 
opposed the act for the resumption of specie payments, passed 
by Congress in January of that year, demanded the issue of 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 57 

more irredeemable greenbacks, and asserted that the interest 
on the public debt should be paid in paper money, and some 
of then- orators and newspapers went so far as to demand the 
payment of the principal of the debt in the same kind of cur- 
rency. The Democratic nominee for Governor was William 
Allen, popularly known as "old Bill Allen," who already held 
the place by virtue of the election of 1873. This venerable 
politician personified for a time the soft-money delusion, which 
got the name of " the Ohio idea," and was commonly ridiculed { 
by its opponents as "the rag baby." The Republican candi- 
date was Rutherford B. Hayes, who had been Governor for 
two terms, from 1868 to 1872. Taking ground in favor of hon- 
est money redeemable in coin and an honest payment of the 
national debt, the Republicans carried the State by a small ma- 
jority and turned the tide of inflation. The campaign attracted 
national attention to Mr. Hayes, and made him the candidate 
of his State for the Presidential nomination in 1876. 

The Republicans held their National Convention at Cincin- 
nati on June 14th, 1876. James G. Blaine, of Maine, was the 
leading candidate, and his nomination was regarded as almost 
a certainty when the ballotting began. The other prominent 
candidates were Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana; Roscoe Conk- 
Ling, of New York; Benjamin F. Bristow, of Kentucky, and 
John F. Hartranft, of Pennsylvania. Bristow's power, came, 
as a rule, from the element most dissatisfied with President 
Grant's administration. He had been Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, and had differed with the President about the prosecution 
of certain persons in the West concerned in the frauds on the 
revenue. A personal quarrel arose, and Bristow resigned his 
place in the Cabinet. The supporters of Morton, Conkling, and 
Hartranft were, in the main, warm friends of the administra- 
tion. Those of Mr. Blaine were drawn from both elements by 
his great personal popularity and his reputation as a Congres- 
sional leader. A combination between the forces of Morton, 
Conkling, Hartranft, and Hayes, and a portion of those of 
Bristow defeated Blaine and nominated Hayes on the seventh 
ballot, the vote standing, Hayes, 384-, Blaine, 351; Bristow, 31. 
William A. Wheeler, and old and influential representative in 
Congress from the State of New York, was nominated for Vice- 
President with little opposition. Mr. Hayes' nomination proved 
to be a popular and fortunate one. He had an excellent mili- 
tary and civil record and no personal enemies, and he united 
all of the jarring elements of the Republican organization. 



58 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

The Democratic Convention met in St. Louis on the 27th of 
June, and on the second ballot nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of 
New York, for President. His principal competitors were, 
Thos. H. Hendricks, of Indiana; Wm. Allen, of Ohio; and 
General Hancock, of the army. Tilden had just served a term 
as Governor of New York, and had won considerable reputa- 
tion as a reformer by his hostility to the canal ring, and to the 
corrupt Tammany organization in the City of New York. The 
Democrats ran their canvass almost exclusively on what they 
called the reform line. They claimed that the Republican 
party had grown corrupt with long lease of power. They vig- 
orously attacked the administration of President Grant, made 
the most of all the scandals, true or false, which had grown out 
of it, and presented their candidate as a man who would sweep 
the public service clean of all abuses as with a new broom. 

The Republican canvass consisted mainly of an attack on the 
bad record of the Democratic party and a cry of alarm at the 
solidity of the section of the country late in rebellion. A good 
deal was made out of the enormous Southern claims presented 
in Congress for war damages, and an effective attack was 
kept up against Mr. Tilden on account of his failure to pay a 
large amount of money due from him to the Government as in- 
come tax, and also on account of his sharp financial operations 
in connection with certain Western railroads. Three insignifi- 
cant minor organizations placed candidates in the field for the 
campaign of 1876. The Greenback party, an organization of 
fantastic theorists and small demagogues, took up the so-called 
Ohio idea, which the Democrats had refused to indorse in their 
St. Louis platform, and endeavored to build upon it a great 
political organization. They nominated for President the ven- 
erable New York philanthropist, Peter Cooper, and for Vice- 
President Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio, a popular orator who had 
belonged to nearly every political organization which had ex- 
isted in his life-time. The Prohibitionists held a convention in 
Cleveland and nominated for President, Green Clay Smith, of 
Kentucky, and for Vice-President, Gideon T. Stewart, of Ohio, 
on a platform demanding a constitutional amendment prohib- 
iting the liquor traffic. A mass meeting was held in Pittsburgh, 
which attempted to start a new organization called the Ameri- 
can National Party. James B. Walker, of Illinois, was nomi- 
nated for President, and Donald Kirkpatrick, of New York, 
for Vice-President. The platform favored the recognition of 
God and the Sabbath in the Constitution, demanded prohibitory 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 59 

liquor laws, and denounced all secret societies. The move- 
ment proved abortive, and nothing was heard of it during the 
canvass. 

The campaign of 187G was exceedingly animated, and was 
closely contested in all parts of the Union except the Southern 
States, where the Democrats had already gained control. The 
popular vote was as follows: Tilden, 4,284,757; Hayes, 4,033- 
950 ; Cooper, 81,740 ; Smith, 9, 522. The electoral vote, as finally 
decided by a commission created to settle the dispute about the 
returns, was, Hayes, 185; Tilden, 184. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE ELECTORAL COUNT. 

Both parties claimed to have carried the Presidential election 
of 1876, and before the question was decided the country was 
brought uncomfortably near to the verge of civil war. The re- 
sult turned upon the votes of South Carolina, Florida, and 
Louisiana, which were certified by the State authorities to have 
been cast for Hayes and Wheeler. In each of those States Dem- 
ocratic electors claimed to have been elected, and sent con- 
testing returns to Washington. Great excitement prevailed 
throughout the country. Politicians of both parties hurried to 
the disputed States to witness the counts of the popular vote 
and supervise the action of the rival electoral colleges. In South 
Carolina, which the Republicans had previously carried by 
majorities averaging 30,000, the Democrats organized rifle 
clubs during the campaign to systematically intimidate colored 
voters. These rifle clubs moved about the country fully armed, 
and uniformed in red shirts, broke up Republican meetings, and 
spread terror among the black population. The whole State 
seemed like an armed camp. The effect produced by this mili- 
tary organization on the minds of the timid colored people was 
greatly increased by the Ellenton and Hamburg massacres, in 
which a large number of negroes were killed. An account of 
these occurrences would be foreign to the purpose of this work. 
It is enough to say that the white Democrats were the aggress- 
ors and the colored Republicans the victims, and that the 
Republicans were convinced that both of the affairs grew out 
of the purpose of the Democrats to so terrify th« blacks that a 
large proportion of them would be afraid to vote. As first re- 
turned there appeared to be a small majority for Tilden in South 



00 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Carolina. The board of canvassers threw out the votes of two 
counties, acting in this matter by the plain authority of the 
laws of the State, and gave certificates to the Hayes electors. 
In Florida there was a little violence and a good deal of fraud, 
with the same result as in the case of South Carolina. In 
Louisiana the Republicans, judging from elections of previous 
years, had a large and certain majority. The Democrats se- 
lected five of the heaviest of the Republican parishes for a 
species of campaigning known as bulldozing. It was practi- 
cally the South Carolina rifle club system, which, it may be 
mentioned, originated in Mississippi, in the State canvass of 
1875, and was currently known in the South as the ' ' Mississippi 
Plan." In Louisiana, however, it was somewhat modified and 
combined with features borrowed from the old Ku-Klux Klan. 
The scheme of the Democrats was well conceived, for if they 
could by their acts of violence overcome the Republican ma- 
jorities in those five counties they could carry the State. The 
only alternative for the Republicans who controlled the State 
Government would, they thought, be to throw out the returns 
of the five counties entirely, and in that event the Democrats 
would also win the election. The returning board, composed 
of Republicans, was authorized by law to count and tabulate 
the votes and reject those from the precincts where the elec- 
tion had been vitiated by fraud or violence, and by this au- 
thority the board threw out the five bulldozed parishes, which 
left the Democrats a majority ; but it also threw out a number 
of precincts in other parishes, so that the Republicans had a 
majority on the final count. The action of the board was un- 
doubtedly legal, but it was violently assailed as wicked and 
corrupt by the Democrats. In a moral point of view the defeat 
of the Democratic scheme for carrying the State by terrorizing 
the Republican voters in five of the strongest Republican par- 
ishes was certainly justifiable. 

When the Democrats saw fhat they had lost South Carolina, 
Florida, and Louisiana, and that Hayes would have a majority 
of one in the electoral count, they attempted to set up a bogus 
electoral college in Oregon. Five thousand dollars were sent 
out from New York to pay expenses, and more money was 
promised if the plot succeeded. Governor Grover, a Democrat, 
making himself the judge of the qualifications of the Oregon 
electors, decided that one of them was not competent, and com- 
missioned the defeated Democratic candidate, named Cronin, 
in his place. Cronin held ah electoral college by himself, ap- 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 61 

pointed two other Democrats to fill vacancies, and sent on a 
pretended return to Washington. 

The Democrats had a majority in the House of Representa- 
tives and the Republicans in the Senate, and there was a dead- 
lock for a time over the question of the powers of the two 
Houses concerning the electoral count. The Democrats held 
that if one House should reject a return it could not be counted, 
while the Republicans took the ground that a concurrence of 
both Houses was necessary for the disfranchisement of a State, 
or the rejection of any part of its vote. It was also maintained 
by many Republicans, though not by all, that the President of 
the Senate was empowered by the Constitution to count the 
returns, and that the two Houses were only present in joint 
convention as official witnesses. This opinion had the support 
of the authority of many of the framers of the Constitution, and 
it was beyond dispute that the returns of all the early Presiden- 
tial elections were counted in this way. Fortunately, a com- 
promise was reached and a bill was passed, providing that all 
returns objected to by either House should be referred to a 
commission composed of five Senators, five Representatives, 
and five Justices of the Supreme Court, and that the decisions 
of the commission should stand unless overturned by the con- 
current vote of both houses. With few exceptions the leading 
men of both parties united in this compromise. It was consid- 
ered a patriotic thing to allay public excitement and avoid the 
growing danger of civil war by submitting the whole contro- 
versy to a judicial settlement. In the organization of the 
tribunal the representatives from the two Houses of Congress 
were evenly divided between the two parties. Two of the Su- 
preme Court Justices selected had Republican antecedents and 
two Democratic, and the choice of the fifth Justice was left to 
these four. The Democrats supposed that their choice would 
fall upon Justice Davis of Illinois, but Davis was elected to the 
Senate by the Legislature of the State, and having thus stepped 
down from the bench into party politics, was not available. 
Justice Bradley, of New Jersey, was therefore selected. The 
questions before the tribunal were argued for weeks by some 
of the ablest lawyers in the country. On divisions the vote 
invariably stood eight to seven, the eight Republicans voting- 
together, and the seven Democrats snowing equal solidity. 
The Republicans took the ground that Congress had no right 
to go back of the regular formal returns of any State, to take 
up questions concerning frauds in elections or counts. The 



F TS1 1 A. ' PA1 IT 

tnTM: __ - _ - _; - zrreme party neces- 
1 contended that Con- 

! 

;ased. The adoption of th_ 
e m kin| I residential election - 

-ral "■-- — - i fibf raefttrnj i_iber 

i - w President on the 
-. - an inr-r 

Lir. . fr 
7_ - ion made Ent 

__im a majority o: 
T was mnch menac- 

mangurating 

I cssed 

- ] wfnUy elected Presi- 

dent £n i - "— cste of that body to 

filibustez consul- II noon on the 4th of 

n of the count. This 
m ould 111 - at had it not "been for the 

mocrats. who sh 
mac: - juncture than did 

ted just in 
without opposition. 
War yeaz indeed v 

lenounee 
mni«Ri nm far i^fcich their own party leaders were as 

Bepublican party, and to 
? 'resident. Mr. Hayes* 
clear as that of any 
"nite House. He had a ma- 
returned and legally 
• on had been permitted in the South 
and laflLdazing organizations he "would have 
: (opular ~ 



: HAT TEE ITT. 
Z'Hn z__ v — ~zz - "tthi: — 

rrn m " : 

ppo- 
His 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 63 

administration failed to keep the Republican party united, but 
perhaps it was too strong and its majorities too large for har- 
mony to prevail. It seems to be a law of parties that when one 
greatly overtops the other for a series of years it begins to 
crumble. If it has the binding force of principle, however, the 
disintegration only throws off some of the surface material, and 
ceases when it is brought down to about the size of the oppos- 
ing party. The mistakes President Grant made in regard to 
persons and policy will hardly be remembered in history, and 
need not be dwelt on here. Future generations will think of 
only two things in connection with his eight years in the White 
House, and both will be regarded as bright and enduring hon- 
ors worthily added to his great military fame — that he held 
the country firmly up to the results of the war, and that he 
stood like a rock to stem the current of the paper-money infla- 
tion mania. To the title of victor over the Rebellion which 
he won at Appomattox may truthfully be added that of de- 
fender of the public credit and protector of the principle of 
equal rights for all citizens. 

When Mr. Hayes entered upon the duties of the Presidential 
office, rival State governments existed in South Carolina and 
Louisiana. The Florida imbroglio had been settled by the ac- 
tion of the State Supreme Court. In South Carolina the Re- 
publicans claimed to have elected Governor Chamberlain by 
the same vote which chose the Presidential electors. The 
Democrats claimed that Wade Hampton was lawfully elected. 
Each party had inaugurated its Governor, and each had a 
Legislature in session — the Republicans in the State House, pro- 
tected by a force of United State troops, the Democrats in a 
building hired for the purpose. After a delay of over a month, 
which was unfortunate because irritating to the public mind 
both North and South, the President ordered the troops to 
withdraw from the State House, and the Chamberlain govern- 
ment instantly ceased to exist. The Hampton government 
took possession of the State House without opposition, admit- 
ted a portion of the members of the Republican Legislature, 
and, professing an intention to forget the past and to treat all 
citizens fairly, assumed complete control of the State. 

In Louisiana the condition of things was more complicated 
than in South Carolina. The Republicans, under Governor 
Packard, had a complete State go vernment installed in the State 
House in New Orleans, but it could not make its authority re- 
spected in the State, and was actually a close prisoner in the 



64 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Capitol building. The Democrats, under Governor Nicholls, 
ran a government in Odd Fellows Hall, and having a large 
force of well-disciplined white militia at their command were 
able to enforce their authority. With their troops and with 
the police of New Orleans they so overawed the Republican 
officials, legislators, and guards that they did not venture to 
cross an imaginary line drawn through the middle of the streets 
surrounding the State House. In a building adjoining the State 
House a regiment of United States troops was quartered, and 
a, passage was opened between the two structures so that the 
soldiers could go to the assistance of Governor Packard in case 
of an attack. Throughout the State the Democrats had dis- 
placed the Republican local officials chosen at the fall election, 
and thus controlled the judiciary and the county offices in all 
the parishes except those in the sugar-planting region, where 
the blacks were in an overwhelming majority. A few un- 
principled colored men went back and forth between the two 
Legislatures, making a quorum in whatever body they ap- 
peared. President Hayes sent a commission to New Orleans 
to effect a compromise if possible. Its members were Judge 
Lawrence, of Illinois, General Hawley, of Connecticut, Wayne 
McVeagh, of Pennsylvania, Judge Harlan, of Kentucky, and 
ex-Governor Brown, of Tennessee. It was finally arranged 
that the Nicholls government should be allowed to go on, that 
a Legislature should be made up of the two conflicting organi- 
zations, that the troops should be withdrawn from protecting 
Packard, and that no prosecutions for political reasons should 
be commenced against Republicans. Governor Packard did 
not assent to these terms. Seeing that he could not sustain 
himself, he abandoned the State House, and the Nicholls gov- 
ernment moved in. The Democrats soon broke faith by begin- 
ning criminal suits against members of the Returning Board for 
the purpose, as was generally reported, of forcing the admin- 
istration to give them control of the New Orleans Custom House 
patronage. The State Supreme Court finally put a stop to 
these proceedings. The Senate at Washington admitted Kel- 
logg, the Senator chosen by the Packard Legislature, thus vir- 
tually recognizing the legality of the Packard government, but 
in the case of South Carolina it seated Butler, whom the Dem- 
ocratic Legislature had chosen, while still in a fragmentary and 
illegal condition. This was done as a compromise, but two 
years later the Democrats sought to unseat Kellogg, and were 
only prevented by three or four Southern Senators breaking 



IIISTOR Y OF THE REPUBLIC. 1 N I i IUTY. 65 

away from the party caucus, and sustaining Kellogg on the 
ground that his case was res adjudicata. 

President Hayes' action in the South Carolina and Louisiana 
affairs gave rise to severe criticism and active opposition in the 
Eepublican party. A portion of the Republicans calling them- 
selves " Stalwarts " insisted that the titles of Chamberlain and 
Packard were just as good as that of Mr. Hayes, and should 
have been defended with the whole power of the Government, 
if necessary. Another element believed that the experiment of 
sustaining Southern governments with Federal bayonets had 
failed to produce order, prosperity, and security of the civil 
rights of the negroes, and that the only course left was to let 
the Southern States alone to manage their own affairs. 

Whatever might be the legal and moral title of Packard and 
Chamberlain, this latter class argued, it was impolitic to sustain 
with armed force authority which could not make itself re- 
spected. This class hoped that the policy of non-interference 
would soon lead to the division of the Southern whites, to the 
blotting out of the color line in Southern politics, and to the 
growth of a new Republican organization, composed of both 
whites and blacks. They were encouraged in this belief by 
the statements of many prominent Southern men, who said, 
' ' Give us home rule, and the feeling of intolerance toward the 
Republican party will cease." Eight years have passed since 
then, and the hope of a division in the "solid South" has not 
been verified. Opposition to the Democratic party in that 
section is still regarded as in some sort treason to the interests 
of the South, as though the South were not a component part 
of the United States, but a political entity separate and apart. 
In most of the Southern States no opposition is made to the 
negroes voting as they please, but the counting and return of 
the votes are in the hands of the Democratic officials, and pub- 
lic opinion, so far as it is shaped by the respectable white 
classes, justifies any fraud that is necessary to wipe out Repub- 
lican majorities. 

Besides the Southern question, there came up another issue 
upon which Republicans disagreed. An agitation began dur- 
ing President Grant's administration for a reform in the civil 
service. Grant yielded to it so far as to create a commission 
which prescribed rules for the examination of candidates for 
office. The movement went beyond this and demanded that 
appointments should not be made as a reward for party service ; 
that the public offices should not be dispensed by Senators and 



G HESFORT OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

Congressmen to their followers and favorites, and that public 
officials should not employ their time in managing cau ; 
and conventions, and in working for the success of candidates. 
The Cincinnati platform promised this sort of reform, and Presi- 
dent Hay 5 believed in ii He attempted to carry it out by dis- 
regarding, when he saw fit. the recommendations of Senators 
and Representatives concerning appointments and removals in 
their States or districts, and by issuing an order commanding 
office-holders to refrain from taking part in caucuses, conven- 
tions, and other forms of party work. On the one side it was 
held that this policy weakened the party organization and de- 
prived the officials of their rights as citizens to take an c, 
part in p polities : on the other it was maintained that the policy 
was a good one, tending to elevate polities and to release the 
party from the rule of cliques of office-holders, who organized 
*• machines" to override the will of a large majority of the 
voters. The ideas of the Civil Reformers were after- 

wards adopted during President Arthur's adininistration. So 
far as they were applicable to the Departments at Washington 
and the principal custom-houses and post-offices, and a law 
was passed by the votes of a majority of both parties in Con- 
- to give them effect. 
TL above referred to so weakened the Republi- 

can party that in 1ST? it lost several of the had car- 

ried : Time and good sense soon healed them in a large 

measure, however. The Republican party recovered its com- 
pactness in 1878, in the defense of the Specie Payment Act 
against the f the Democrats. It was powerfully 

aided, too, by an exposure made by the Xetr York Tribune of 
a secret eorrespjondence in cipher, carried on during the win- 
ter of 187"f>-7 between 3Ir. Tilden's nephew Pelton and other 
confidential friends in New York and certain agents sen: 
to capture the electoral votes of the States of South Carolina, 
Florida. Louisiana, and Oregon. The employment of corrupt 
means to bribe electors or returning authorities in those States 
plainly shown by these dispatches. The disposition of 
some Republicans to think Mr. Tilden might p«:»ssibly have 
been fairly elected and unjustly kept out of the Presid 
vanished when the means adopted by his close friends to se- 
cure him the office were thus exposed. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 67 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS — THE ELECTION LAWS- 
DEMOCRATIC ATTEMPT TO COERCE THE EXECUTIVE. 

The act of 1875 providing for a return to specie payments on 
the first of January. 1879, was a Republican measure, and for 
four years was defended by the Republicans against the attacks 
of the Democrats. A few Western Republicans joined in these 
attacks, and a few Eastern Democrats helped repulse them ; but 
the great mass of one party favored the redemption of the 
greenback notes in coin, and the great mass of the other wanted 
the law repealed. Many Democrats embraced the notion of 
"fiat money," asserting that the government by its fiat can 
make absolute money out of paper or any other valueless ma- 
terial. Gold and silver money was a relic of barbarism, they 
declared, to use valuable metals for currency when paper, 
which cost next to nothing, would answer the purpose much 
better, being wasteful and foolish. These deluded people 
Avanted all the greenbacks and the national bank notes retired 
and replaced by a new kind of Government notes, bearing no 
promise to pay on their faces, but simply declaring themselves 
to be money of different denominations. These notes were to 
be issued in quantities sufficient ' ' to meet the wants of trade, " 
and were never to be redeemed. 

As the time fixed for resumption drew near, the clamor against 
the law increased. Every business failure was ascribed by the 
Democratic press in the West and South to the effect of the 
act, and the speedy ruin of the business of the country was pre- 
dicted. John Sherman, who as Secretary of the Treasury made 
careful preparation for resumption, and opposed any postpone- 
ment of the date, was a special target for criticism and abuse. 
Specie payments were resumed on the day appointed by law, 
without the slightest shock or disturbance to business interests. 
Industrial and commercial prosperity began to return to the 
country shortly afterward, and soon the wisdom of the Re- 
sumption Act was acknowledged by every one. Even the 
fanatical paper-money doctrinaires, who formed a party by 
themselves, because the Democrats did not go far enough in the 
direction of repudiation and inflation to satisfy them, ceased to 
demand in their platforms the repeal of the law. Like the 
former inflationists in the Democratic party, they have come 



6S HISTOB Y OF THE REPUBLICAN PAL' T 1 ". 

down to a demand for the retirement of bank-notes and the 
substitution of greenbacks for them. 

In the Congress which closed March 4th, 1879, the Democrats 
controlled the House and the Republicans the Senate. The 
Democrats sought to accomplish the repeal of the Federal elec- 
tion laws in spite of the opposition of both the Senate and the 
President. These laws were passed in 1870, after an investi- 
gation of the gigantic frauds perpetrated in the City of New 
York at the election of 1868. They were always objectionable 
to the Democrats, theoretically because they conflicted with 
their traditional views about State rights, and practically be- 
cause they prevented the repetition of the frauds of 1868 for the 
benefit of the Democratic party. The Republicans defended 
the laws because of their demonstrated utility in securing fair 
elections, and because they were based on the sound constitu- 
tional principle of the right of Congress to regulate elections 
that are national in their character. The Democrats tacked 
a section repealing the election laws upon a general appro- 
priation bill. They also placed on the Army Appropriation Bill 
a section prohibiting the use of troops at elections to keep the 
peace or suppress riots. Rather than abandon these ' ' riders '' 
they let the bills fail, and forced an extra session of Congress. 

In the new Congress the Democrats controlled both Houses, 
and had only the President to grapple with. Mr. Hayes re- 
solved to defend the election laws with his veto power. As 
for the matter of troops at the polls, he exposed the issue as a 
fictitious one, showing that there were already ample provis- 
ions of law forbidding the use of troops for political purposes. 
He refused to abandon for the Executive the right to enforce 
obedience to law. with the military arm if necessary, at places 
where elections were held, as well as elsewhere. So the issue 
was joined. The Democrats threatened to break down the Gov- 
ernment by leaving it without means to exist if the President 
did not yield. Mr. Hayes stood firm, and answered them by a 
series of vetoes directed against their measures, which main- 
tained, by arguments of remarkable force and clearness, the 
supremacy of the nation in all matters of national concern, and 
the independence of the Executive from Congressional dicta- 
tion. Baffled at every point in the long struggle, the Demo- 
crats finally yielded and passed all the appropriations except 
the one providing for the payment of the United States mar- 
shals. They declared, however, that they would renew the 
contest at the next session, but the fall elections were against 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 69 

them, and they did not resume hostilities in the session which 
began December, 1879. Only a remnant of the controversy was 
preserved in a proviso, which they put upon an appropriation 
bill at the close of the session, prohibiting the payment of 
deputy marshals for services at elections. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1880 — NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF 
JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The idea of electing General Grant in 1880 for a third term 
was in the minds of many prominent Republicans from the day 
he left the White House. Most of these men had favored his 
nomination in 1876, but considerable feeling arose in the coun- 
try against a third term, and to assure the people that the party 
did not meditate conferring upon Grant greater honors then 
Washington had received, several Republican State Conven- 
tions passed resolutions in 1875, declaring that they were op- 
posed to the election of any President for more than two 
terms. General Grant went abroad in 1877 and spent two years 
in foreign travel, making the circuit of the globe and visiting 
nearly all the great nations of the earth. He was received, 
wherever he went, with honors such as are only accorded to 
reigning monarchs. Regarded as the representative of the great 
American Republic and the most distinguished of living mili- 
tary chieftains, rulers and people everywhere made his journey 
a succession of brilliant official and popular demonstrations. 
These remarkable honors were almost as nattering to his coun- 
trymen as to himself, and served to keep his name and fame 
fresh in their minds. Before he returned to the United States, 
in the fall of 1879, it was plain that a strong movement would 
be made to secure his nomination. With characteristic reti- 
cence he neither assented nor objected to this movement, but 
remained perfectly passive. Most of the politicians who had 
held positions under his administration naturally desired his 
return to power, and there was besides a considerable body 
of Republicans who had not been office-holders and did not ex- 
pect to be, who believed he would be the most popular candi- 
date the party could nominate, and urged his candidacy on 
the ground of expediency. His most prominent supporters 
were the three influential Senators from New York, Penn- 
sylvania, and Illinois — Conkling, Cameron, and Logan. The 



70 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Southern Republicans were almost unanimous in his favor. 
A considerable majority of the Northern Republicans opposed 
his nomination, however, because they believed it would be a 
violation of the tradition of two terms only, and a step toward 
personal government. Besides, they thought it would furnish 
the Democrats with a popular issue — opposition to a third 
term — on which the Republicans would be placed in the posi- 
tion of defending an innovation upon a safe, conservative, 
long-established custom. The discussion of the question of 
nominating Grant began in earnest in December, 1879, and 
lasted without intermission until the National Convention met 
at Chicago on the 10th of June following. Most of the anti- 
third-term men supported Senator James G. Blaine, of Maine, 
the most popular of the Republican leaders. A considerable 
number favored the Secretary of the Treasury, John Sherman, 
of Ohio, making his excellent record as a Republican and his 
brilliant success in the resumption of specie payments the 
ground of their choice. Senator Geo. F. Edmunds, of Ver- 
mont, had the backing of his own State and of Massachusetts ; 
Elihu B. Washburne, ex-minister to Paris, had a small West- 
ern following, and Senator William Windom, of Minnesota, 
was supported by that State. Neither candidate had votes 
enough to nominate him. The first ballot in the convention 
stood: Grant, 304; Blaine, 284; Sherman, 93; Edmunds, 34; 
Washburne, 30 ; Windom, 10. On the second ballot one vote 
was given to Gen. Garfield, of Ohio, and on most of the sub- 
sequent ballots, during the first day's voting he had 2. The 
above figures were pretty closely preserved for thirty-three 
ballots. The Grant men could have controlled the nomina- 
tion if they had been willing to drop their candidate and take 
up a new man, but they stuck to the ex-President with obso- 
lute fidelity. Both the Blaine men and the Sherman men 
were equally devoted to their leaders. The dead-lock was 
finally brought to an end by the Wisconsin delegation voting 
for Garfield on the 34th ballot, against his protest. As the 
leader of the Ohio delegation, Garfield was a supporter of 
Sherman, and he objected to being put in an apparent atti- 
tude of willingness to abandon the Ohio candidate. On the 
next ballot, however, Indiana followed Ohio, and on the 36th 
ballot nearly the whole body of anti- third term men swung 
into line for Garfield, giving him the nomination by the fol- 
lowing vote: Garfield. 399; Grant, 30G; Blaine, 42; Sherman, 
3; Washburne, 5. The result was a fortunate one. General 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 71 

Garfield was acceptable to all the elements in the convention, 
and the whole party dropped at once all former causes of dif- 
ference and rallied to his support. Chester A. Arthur, of New 
York, an earnest Grant man, was nominated for the Vice- 
Presidency, with a view of making the ticket represent both 
wings of the party lately engaged in a contest over the ques- 
tion of Grant's candidacy. The vote Avas — Arthur, 468 ; Wash- 
burne, 193; Jewell, 44; Maynard, 30; Bruce, 8. General Ar- 
thur's experience as chairman of the New York Republican 
State Committee made him peculiarly available, and his prom- 
inence as a Grant man rendered him specially acceptable to the 
element which had before controlled Republican politics in 
New York. The ticket was instantly indorsed by the entire 
Republican press and by men of all shades of Republican 
opinion. 

By a happy inspiration the convention selected, instead of the 
obscure man of only local fame who usually comes out of such 
close contests with the nomination, one of the best known, 
most trusted, and ablest of the national leaders of the Republi- 
can party. At the same time it secured a man w^ith extraordi- 
nary elements of personal popularity in his career — a man who 
rose from the ranks of toil, who gained the means for his edu- 
cation at the carpenter's bench and on the tow-path of a canal, 
who served with distinguished bravery in the war, and who 
has won his way, by pure merit and honest effort, to the high- 
est walks of statesmanship and scholarly culture. 

The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati on 
the 22d of June. The party had been suffering from the 
standing candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden, who had a claim upon 
the nomination based on the assertion by the Democratic lead- 
ers and newspapers that he was elected in 1876 and defrauded 
of the office. He personified the ''fraud issue,' ' and it was 
manifestly impossible for the party to make that issue promi- 
nent without making him its candidate. Mr. Tilden wrote a 
letter just before the convention assembled, declining in terms 
the nomination. The letter presented, however, in a masterly 
manner, the arguments in favor of his candidacy, and was gen- 
erally regarded as intended to strengthen his chances for the 
nomination. On the first ballot the delegates scattered their 
votes as follows : Hancock, 171 ; Bayard, 153^ ; Field, 65 ; Mor- 
rison, 62; Hsndricks, 49i; Thurman, 68i; Payne, 81; Tilden, 
38 ; Ewing, 10 ; Seymour, 8 ; scattering, 28. 

After this ballot the convention adjourned until the next 



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HISTORY OE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 73 

ganize a strong uniformed corps, called the Knights of Labor, 
with detachments in every town, which made manifest its 
protest against the proposed blow to American industry by 
torch-light parades, and military exercises, and did excellent 
campaign work. 

The supporters of Gen. Grant had felt a good deal chagrined 
at the defeat of their candidate at Chicago, and at one time it 
was feared they would not enter heartily into the work of the 
campaign, but their candidate set them an example which 
brought them out of their lethargy. In August Gen. Grant 
appeared on the stump in Ohio, in support of Gen. Garfield, 
and he afterwards delivered a number of short speeches at 
different places in both the East and the West. At the same 
time Senator Eoscoe Oonkling, of New York, Grant's most 
conspicuous supporter, took the field. The canvass at once 
became active, and the Republicans rapidly gained ground. 
They carried Indiana and Ohio at the October election, though 
not without a strenuous effort, and by so doing practically 
settled the result in November. Just before the November 
election an unscrupulous effort to defeat Gen. Garfield was 
made through the agency of a small daily newspaper in New 
York called Truth. This paper published a forged letter, en- 
graved in imitation of Garfield's handwriting, in which he was 
made to take ground in favor of the importation of Chinese 
cheap labor. The Democratic committee sent out electrotype 
plates of this false letter to large numbers of newspapers of 
their party so as to secure its publication in all parts of the 
country. The rascality of the whole affair was promptly ex- 
posed by the Republicans, but the Democratic press professed 
to believe the letter genuine until after the election, and it un- 
doubtedly took thousands of votes away from the Republicans. 
California and Nevada were lost to them by reason of it, there 
not being time enough before the election to give effect to the 
denials of the authenticity of the document at such a distance. 
The success of the Republicans on the national field was, how- 
ever, decisive. General Garfield had a majority of 59 electoral 
votes, the result being, Garfield, 214 ; Hancock, 155. The pop- 
ular vote was very close, owing to the want of organization of 
the Republican party in the South, where proscription com- 
bined with election frauds made the canvass a one-sided affair. 
Garfield had a plurality over Hancock of only 7,018. The vote 
stood, Garfield, 4,449,053; Hancock, 4,442,035; Weaver, 307,- 
306; scattering, 12,576; of which Neal Dow, the candidate of 



?4 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

the Prohibitionists, received 10.305. To a considerable extent 
the result of the election was sectional in its character, since 
all the Southern States voted for Hancock and all the Northern 
States for Garfield, except New Jersey, California, and Nevada. 



CHAPTER XXVHI. 

ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD — HIS ASSASSINATION — 
VICE-PRESIDENT ARTHUR'S ADMINISTRATION. 

G-en. Garfield was inaugurated on the 4th of March. 1881. 
He followed to some extent, in the formation of his Cabinet, the 
example of Abraham Lincoln, inviting to it several prominent 
Republican leaders who had been defeated by him as candi- 
dates for the Presidential nomination. Mr. Blaine, the leading 
candidate in the Chicago convention as opposed to General 
Grant, was made Secretary of State, and the Treasury Depart- 
ment was assigned to William Windoni. of Minnesota, who 
had received a respectable vote in the convention. For the In- 
terior Department, the new President selected Samuel J. Kirk- 
wood, of Iowa, who had been Governor of his State, and was, 
like Mr. Windoni. a member of the Senate at the time of his 
appointment. For Postmaster-General. Thomas L. James, who 
had managed with notable success the post-office of the City 
of New York, was selected, and for Secretary of War, Robert 
T. Lincoln, son of the great President of that name, but him- 
self a new man in national politics. The Attorney-General 
was Wayne MaeYeagh. of Pennsylvania, an ardent advocate 
of Civil Service Reform, and the Secretary of the Navy was 
an eminent Louisiana republican. Wm. H. Hunt. The Cabi- 
net worked together harmoniously, but the feud between the 
two elements in the party, which had healed during the can- 
by the efforts of Gen. Grant, broke out afresh over the 
question of the Federal appointments in the State of New 
York. The Republicans of that State had long been divided 
into two factions known as "Stalwarts" and " Half -breeds.** 
the former led by Senator Conkling. and the other without any 
definite leadership, but with a very strong array of voters. 
The Stalwarts believed in what was known as machine poli- 
ties, which meant the close organization and strict discipline 
of the party, and the use of the public offices as patronage to 
reward party services and increase party efficiency. This fac- 
tion had supported Gen. Grant for Presidential nomination 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 75 

the year bofore, while the opposing faction had rallied upon 
Mr. Blaine. President Garfield early provoked the antago- 
nism of Mr. Conkling and his followers, by refusing to accede to 
the doctrine that the principal Federal offices in a State should 
be disposed of according to the pleasure of the Senators repre- 
senting that State, without regard to the President's own views 
and preferences. The desire of the new President was to heal 
the dissensions in the State of New York, but he was not will- 
ing that Senator Conkling should practically exercise the ap- 
pointing power, and exclude from office all those who belonged 
to the element which succeeded in the Chicago convention ; in 
other words, President Garfield was naturally averse to a 
course of action which would ostracise the Republicans who 
had preferred him for that nomination to Gen. Grant. 

An open rupture was caused by the appointment of W. H. 
Robertson, one of the principal leaders of the anti-machine, or 
Half-breed element in New York, to the Collectorship of the 
port of New York. Prior to making this appointment, Presi- 
dent Garfield had appointed to important positions in the State 
a number of Senator Conkling's friends. Mr. Conkling con- 
ceived that the appointment of Robertson was an act of hostil- 
ity towards himself. He resigned 3 is seat in the Senate, and 
was imitated by Mr. Piatt, the other Senator from New York. 
Both proceeded to Albany, where the Legislature was in ses- 
sion, and sought a re-election, in order to obtain a vindication 
from their constituency as a new weapon to use in their fight 
with the President. The Legislature, however, refused to send 
them back to Washington, and filled their places with other 
men. 

Another cause of trouble to the Garfield administration came 
from the discovery of enormous frauds in carrying the mails 
in the new regions of the far West, on what were known as 
the Star routes. This designation is applied to mail routes 
where the service is performed on horseback or in stage-coaches. 
By connivance between the contractors and certain officials in 
the Post-Office Department in Washington, large sums of money 
were unlawfully drawn from the Treasury in payment for serv- 
ices not rendered. Contracts let for mail service once a week 
were expedited by the Department and made daily contracts 
and the rate of pay greatly increased. On some of these ex- 
pedited routes the old weekly service was continued, while the 
contractors drew pay for pretended daily service. A few poli- 
ticians who had been prominent in national affairs were inter- 



76 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

ested in these contracts, and a great outcry was made against 
sident Garfield by these men and their friends because of 
Ms deterrm nation to uncover the whole fraudulent bus::. 
and bring to trial the guilty parties. Newspapers in Washing- 
ton, owned by Star route contractors and by a Post-Office 
Department official who had served their interest, were vio- 
lent in their denunciations of the President and his Cabinet. 
These two elements of opposition, namely, the stalwart fac- 

in Xew York, represented by Senator Conkling. and the 
Star Route contractors and their friends, made common cause 
against the President and his Cabinet. President Garfield pur- 
I the straightforward course he had marked out for hiniself 
with great determination, and without regard to the excite- 
ment and antagonism which raged around him. 

Thus the first four months of the new administration pas 
away. The feeling of the politicians, who had been disappointed 
in their expectations of controlling the patronage of the gov. 
eminent, grew more and more bitter, and their cause was zeal- 
ous!; I by the Star Eoute ring which had been cut off by 
the new Postmaster-General from its most profitable relations 
with the Treasury, and was threatened by legal proceedings 
already begun with serious penalties. Into the whirlpool of 
partisan strife and hatred at Washington, there came a weak- 
minded, egotistical trifler. named Guiteau. who had led an ad- 
venturous and somewhat disreputable career, being by turns 
a small politician and a religious enthusiast. This conceited, 
semi-lunatic applied for office, and being disappointed in his 

rd ambition, conceived a violent hatred : 
field, which was fed to a flame by the articles he read in a 
shington newspaper, and by the talk of the Stalwart oppo- 

- of the administration. He bought a pistol, laid in wait 
in a railway depot, and when President Garfield was passing 
through to take the train for his summer resting-place, at 
Elber' «n. New Jersey, he fired at him and inflicted a deady 
wound. 
The stricken President languished for weeks in the White 
Washington, the victim of the doctors as well i 
his cruel wound. The assassin's shot stilled at once the angry 
storm of partisan con! and the suffering President be- 

came the objc inpathy which was world-wide ; indeed, 

the history of mankind never before afforded the spectacle of 
a single individual attracting day by day the close and sym- 
patic ntion of the entire civilized globe. Week after 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 77 

week the bulletins of his condition were read in every part of 
the world reached by telegraph. His recovery Avas from the 
first extremely doubtful, but his strong constitution long re- 
sisted the deadly effects of the wound. In September he was 
removed to Elberon, near Long Branch, in the desperate hope 
that the sea air might give him strength. There he died, on 
the 19th of September, 1881. 

Vice-President Arthur, who was called to the Executive Chair 
by this lamentable event, had been identified in his political 
career with the faction of New York Republicans led by Mr. 
Conkling. He was naturally an object of distrust and dislike 
to the element represented by Gen. Garfield, and serious ap- 
prehensions were entertained that his administration of the 
government would widen the breach among Republicans, and 
ultimately lead to the destruction of the party. Mr. Arthur 
appreciated the delicacy of his situation, however, and cau- 
tiously avoided any action which would further identify him 
with the enemies of the dead President. He made very few 
changes at first in the public offices, but, after a few months, 
the members of the Garfield Cabinet dropped out one by one, 
from the feeling that they were out of place, until but one re- 
mained, the Secretary of War. The State elections of 1881 
were carried by the Republicans without much difficulty, on 
the strength of the feeling of sorrow over the death of Gar- 
field. In 1882, however, the party suffered severe reverses, 
losing most of the close States in the North. The most signifi- 
cant result of the contest of that year was in the State of New 
York. Here President Arthur had influenced the nomination 
of a personal friend, Judge Folger, for Governor. The feeling- 
got abroad that the administration had interfered to control 
the nominating convention, and that the friends of the late 
President had, in consequence, been pushed to the wall. The 
result was an overwhelming defeat of the Republican ticket ; 
Judge Folger being beaten by 192,854 majority. 

After this rude experience President Arthur ceased to con- 
cern himself actively with State politics, and by quiet, digni- 
fied, and conservative management of the duties of his office, 
succeeded little by little in winning the respect of both parties, 
and the regard of his own. He adopted as a rule of practice 
the views of the Civil Service Reformers, that public offices 
should be held during the good behavior of the incumbent, and 
should not be dispensed by Senators and Representatives in 
Congress as political patronage. A Civil Service Commission 



78 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

was created by Act of Congress, to recommend after competi- 
tive examination candidates for positions in the Departments 
at Washington and in the principal post-offices and custom 
houses of the country. This system has thus far worked well, 
and has very quietly and with little agitation effected a revo- 
lution in the public service. President Arthur's appointments 
to the higher offices which have become vacant during his ad- 
ministration, have been, as a rule, notably sagacious, and his 
administration has been characterized by an administrative 
and business-like efficiency. The old factional feuds which 
distracted the party have disappeared under the wholesome 
influence of time, and the Kepublican party is once more in the 
full possession of all its former strength and efficiency. The 
rather colorless and inactive administration of Mr. Arthur has 
proven to be wise and salutary for the good of the country, pro 
ducing an unusual degree of harmony and good feeling. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884 — NOMINATION OF BLAINE AND LOGAN. 

The Republican National Convention for 1884 assembled on 
June 3d, in Chicago — a city where the party had already chosen 
three successful candidates for the presidency, Lincoln, Grant, 
and Garfield. Public opinion in the party was unusually 
slow in manifesting decided preferences for candidates prior 
to the meeting of the convention. It was not until March and 
April that the question began to be actively canvassed through- 
out the country. Then it was evident that James G. Blaine had 
lost nothing of the great popularity which in 1876 and again in 
1880 had given him a strength among the Republican voters 
greater than that of any other candidate, and lacking but a 
few votes in the conventions of those years of the number 
necessary for a nomination. Mr. Blaine had been wholly out of 
public life since he retired from the Cabinet a few weeks 
after the death of President Garfield, and had been devoting 
his time to the writing of a history of Congress during the 
eventful twenty years of his service at the Capital. His 
retirement had prevented him from taking part in the discus- 
sion of public measures, and from appearing in his old con- 
spicuous position of a party leader, and was therefore a cru- 
cial test of the strength and endurance of his hold on the 




JOHN A. LOGAN, 



1IIST0R Y OF THE REPUBLICAN /'. I RT \ '. 78a 

respect and affection of the Republican masses. No man who 
had not deeply impressed himself upon the current of his times, 
and upon the hearts of the people, could go through an ordeal 
of three years' seclusion without a loss of prestige and popu- 
larity that would be fatal to any chances he might have of a 
Presidential nomination. The event proved that Mr. Blaine 
had gained instead of lost in political strength since ho laid 
down the portfolio of the State Department. Without any 
effort in his own behalf he obtained the support of a very large 
majority of the delegates to the National Convention from the 
Republican States, and he received 334^ votes on the first ballot. 

Mr. Blaine's chief competitor for the nomination was President 
Arthur, who obtained the almost solid support of the Southern 
States, to which was added a considerable part of the vote of 
his own State of New York. The weakness of Mr. Arthur's 
candidacy lay in the fact that outside of New York, and of a 
few scattering votes from other Northern States, his delegates 
represented States which could render no aid in the election of 
the Republican nominee. The Southern States are still under 
the political domination of the leaders of the late rebellion, and 
with the exception of Virginia, where the Democrats have di- 
vided into two factions, not one of them can be placed in the 
list of probable Republican States. Furthermore, Mr. Arthur's 
candidacy assumed an official rather than a popular phase, his 
conspicuous supporters being for the most part Federal office- 
holders, save in the city of New York, where his prudent ad- 
ministration had won for him the endorsement of many promi- 
nent business men. Mr. Arthur's first and highest vote was 278. 

The third candidate in relative strength in the ballotting 
was Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, who at the start was sup- 
ported by 93 delegates, chiefly from Massachusetts, Vermont, 
and New York. Senator John A. Logan, of Illinois, was the 
candidate of his own State, receiving with some outside help 
63i votes on the first ballot. Senator Hawley, of Connecticut, 
had 13 votes ; Senator Sherman, of Ohio, 30 ; Robert T. Lincoln, 
Secretary of War, a son of Abraham Lincoln, who was much 
talked of by the press a few months before as a possible strong 
candidate, received four, and the retired general of the army, 
W. T. Sherman, was given two votes, in spite of his repeated 
refusals to allow his name to be used. It is an interesting 
feet that of the eight candidates voted for, only one, Mr. 
Blaine, held no official position at the time. One was Presi- 
dent, four were United States Senators, one was a Cabinet 



- TOR r OF THE REPUBLICAN PA RTT. 

Minister, and one a General on the retired list. The result of 
the ballotting is shown in the following table: 



CA>~DIDATES. 


First Ballot. 


Second BaBot. Third Ballot. 


r -ril-:::. 


Blaine. 


SS^ 


i- : 


375 


-:■:■ 


Ar~.~-~. ■ 


■:-r 


2TB 


274 


307 


RilmiadR, 


93 


S: 


r -: 


B 


I>:.*ran. - 


BH 


~: 


•> 




Hawlei-. - 


13 


13 


13 


j 


John Smm, 


:•: 


■:■? 


25 


15 


finmln, 


J 


i 


« 


15 


■■" - -„rTl_^^ - 


g 


•- 


-] 





In the convention of 1876 Mr. Blaine was defeated by a com- 
bination of all the other candidates. In I860 Gen. Grant's 
solid forces stood in the way of his nomination and he threw 
his own support to Gen. Garfield, and thus won a victory in 
the person of his friend. In the convention of 1SS4. he 
too strong to be beaten by any combination or to be compelled 
to retire in favor of any weaker candidate. His nomination 
was a triumph of positive, practical statesmanship in dom- 
affairs, and of a courageous, intelligent Americanism in the re- 
lations of the United States with other nations. 

The supporters of Gen. Logan went over in a body to Mr. 
Blaine on the fourth ballot. After this it was only natural that 
the friendly feeling always entertained by the Blaine men for 
the Illinois Senator should take the direction of a determina- 
tion to place him on the ticket for Vice-President. The con- 
vention took a recess until evening, after the nomination for 
President had been consummated, and when it reassembled 
the enthusiasm for Logan swept away all opposition. He was 
nominated on the first ballot, receivin- 7i :-tes to 6 for 
Greshanu of Indiana. 3 for Fairchild, of Wisconsin, and 1 
for Foraker. of Ohio. General Logans gallant war record, his 
g hold on the affections of the former soldiers of the Union 
armies, and his long, conspicuous, and honorable career in both 
houses of Congress made his nomination a peculiarly fortunate 
one. 

The platform upon which the Kepublican party undertakes 
its eighth national canvass is not made up of glittering gener- 
alities, but deals explicitly with the living questions of the 
times. It re-afiirnis the consistent policy of the party in re- 
gard to protection for American industry. It favors the regu- 
lation of railway corporations. It opposes Chinese immigra- 
tion, and endorses the eight-hour system for labor. It pledges 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 78c 

the party to sustain and extend the Civil Service reform prin- 
ciples which it has introduced. It demands the reservation of 
the public lands for small holdings of actual settlers, and the 
forfeiture of lapsed land grants where there has been no at- 
tempt in good faith to comply with their conditions. It pledges 
the party to place all pensioners on an equal footing by repeal- 
ing the limitation of the Arrears Act of 1879, so that all pensions 
may date back to the time of the disability or discharge. It 
demands the restoration of the Navy to its old strength and 
efficiency. It asserts that appointments to offices in the Ter- 
ritories should be made from bona fide citizens and residents. 
It demands the suppressien of polygamy in Utah. It re-affirms 
the cardinal Republican doctrine that the United States consti- 
tute a nation and not a mere confederacy of States, and that 
it is the duty of the nation to secure to all its citizens the full 
and complete recognition, possession, and exercise of all civil 
and political rights. 

The Convention met on Tuesday , June 3d, and adjourned late 
on the evening of Friday, June 6th. It was harmonious and en- 
thusiastic. Its ticket was probably the first choice of a larger 
number of Republican voters than any that has been put in 
the field since the first nomination of Gen. Grant, in 1868. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 79 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A FEW WORDS IN CONCLUSION 

In the foregoing chapters the main current of Republican 
action has been clearly traced, beginning with the hostility of 
the party to the extension of slavery, and continuing through 
its successive defence of the integrity of the American Union, 
its emancipation of the slaves, its reorganization of the rebel- 
lious States, its establishment of equal suffrage and equal citi- 
zenship for all, its defence of the public credit, and its resump- 
tion of specie payments. Outside of this main channel of pa- 
triotic activity it has accomplished many things which should 
not be overlooked, even in so brief a sketch as is given in these 
pages. It has steadily reduced the debt resulting from the 
war. and has paid off and cancelled the enormous amount of 
11,136,000,000 in the period between 1SG5 and 1SS3. At the 
same time it has been so successful in funding the principal of 
the remaining debt in low-interest bonds that it has effected a 
saving, in the matter of interest alone, of *S6,000,000 a year. 
thus further lessening the burden of the debt. It has steadily 
reduced taxation and public expenditures. It has greatly im- 
proved and simplified the protective tariff system, originated 
by the Whig party, and has by its legislation of the past 
twenty years so encouraged and shielded American manufac- 
tures that they have increased more than fourfold and are 
now able to command our own markets and to compete in 
many lines with the manufactures of older countries in the 
markets of the world. While opposing all monopolies, the 
Republican party has had for its central idea in its tariff legis- 
lation the fact that the perpetuity of free institutions in this 
country requires an intelligent laboring class, and that such a 
class cannot exist upon the pauper wages paid to the laborers 
of the Old World. The party has also carried out the policy 
of internal improvements, originated by the Whig party, and 
by a system of judicious legislation has opened the great rivers 
of the country to navigation, improved its harbors, and con- 
nected the Atlantic with the Pacific coast by great railway 
lines. It has established a national banking system which 
saves the people millions of dollars annually by protecting 
them against the losses incident to the old State banking sys- 
tems which preceded it. It has greatly improved the postal 






80 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

system, giving to the country fast mails and letter-carrier de- 
liveries. It has established the principle of international ar- 
bitration as a means of averting war. It has put into oper- 
ation a practical reform in the Civil Service. A catalogue of 
the wise measures it has adopted would be far too long to be 
given here. Nearly all of these measures were resisted at the 
time of their adoption by the opposition party, but with 
scarcely an exception they have come to be approved by that 
party as wise and patriotic. No one can see into the future of 
American politics, but it is evident that the party which has 
been able to meet all of the issues of the most important epoch 
in the nation's history with such signal intelligence and such 
remarkable success is not near the end of its career. The day 
is probably far distant when a complete and final history of 
the Republican party can be written. The auther presents 
these pages only as a brief outline sketch of the first thirty 
years of its existence. 



HISTORY OF TILE UK PUBLICAN PARTY. 81 



REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES. 



FIRST REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 
Adopted At Philadelphia, June 17th, 1856. 

This convention of delegates, assembled in pursuance of a 
call addressed to the people of the United States, without re- 
gard to past political differences or divisions, who are opposed 
to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to the policy of the 
present administration, to the extension of slavery into free 
territory ; in favor of admitting Kansas as a free State, of re- 
storing the action of the Federal Government to the principles 
of Washington and Jefferson, and who purpose to unite in 
presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice- 
President, do resolve as follows : 

Resolved, That the maintenance of the principles promul- 
gated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the 
Federal Constitution is essential to the preservation of our re- 
publican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the 
rights of the States, and the Union of the States, shall be pre- 
served. 

Resolved, That with our republican fathers we hold it to be a 
self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalien- 
able rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and 
that the primary object and ulterior designs of our Federal Gov- 
ernment were to secure these rights to all persons within its 
exclusive jurisdiction; that as our Republican fathers, when 
they had abolished slavery in all of our national territory, 
ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or 
property without due process of law, it becomes our duty to 
maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts 
to violate, for the purpose of establishing slavery in any terri- 
tory of the United States, by positive legislation, prohibiting its 
existence or extension therein. That we deny the authority of 
Congress, or of a Territorial Legislature, of any individual or 



82 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in 
any Territory of the United States, while the present Constitu- 
tion shall be maintained. 

Resolved. That the Constitution confers upon Congress sover- 
eign power over the Territories of the United States for their 
government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the 
right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories 
thr.se twin relies of barbarism — polygamy and slavery. 

Resolved. That while the Constitution of the United States 
was ordained and established by the people in order to form a 
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tran- 
quility, provide for the common defense, and secure the bless- 
ings of liberty, and contains ample provisions for the protec- 
tion of the life, liberty, and property of every citizen, the 
dearest constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been 
fraudulently and violently taken from them: their territory 
has been invaded by an armed force : spurious and pretended 
legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been set over 
them, by whose usurped authority sustained by the military 
power of the Government, tyrannical and unconstitutional 
laws have been enacted and enforced ; the rights of the people 
to keep and bear arms have been infringed ; test oaths of an 
extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed as a 
iition of es - the right of suffrage and holding office: 

the right of an accused person to a speedy and public trial by 
an impartial jury has been denied : the right of the people to 
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against 
unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated; they 
have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due 
process of law ; that the freedom of speech and of the press 
has been abridged; the light to choose their representatives 
has been made of no effect: murders, robberies, and arsons have 
been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been 
allowed to go unpunished :— that all of these things have been 
done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the 
present administration, and that for this high crime against 
the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign the ad- 
ministration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, 
apologists, and accessories, either before or after the facts, 
before the country and before the world, and that it is our 
fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atro- 
cious outrages and their accomplices to a sure and condign 
punishment hereafter. 



HISTOR T OF THE RE1 'I UUACA N PARTY. 83 

Resolved, That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a 
State of the Union, with her present free Constitution, as at 
once the most effectual way of securing to her citizens the en- 
joyment of the rights and privileges to which they are entitled, 
and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory. 

Resolved, That the highwayman's plea, that ' ' might makes 
right, " embodied in the Ostend circular, was in every respect 
unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and 
dishonor upon any government or people that gave it their 
sanction. 

Resolved, That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean, by the most 
central and practicable route, is imperatively demanded by the 
interests of the whole country, and that the Federal Govern- 
ment ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its con- 
struction, and, as an auxiliary thereto, the immediate con- 
struction of an emigrant route on the line of the railroad. 

Resolved, That appropriations by Congress for the improve- 
ment of rivers and harbors, of a national character, required 
for the accommodation and security of our existing commerce, 
are authorized by the Constitution, and justified by the obliga- 
tion of Government to protect the lives and property of its 
citizens. 



SECOND EEPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 

Adopted at Chicago, May 17th, 1860. 

Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Re- 
publican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, 
in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our 
country, unite in the following declarations : 

1. That the history of the nation during the last four years 
has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organi- 
zation and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the 
causes which called it into existence are permanent in their 
nature, and now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful 
and constitutional triumph. 

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in 
the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal 
Constitution, ' ' that all men are created equal ; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that 
to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, 
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," 



^4 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

is trssential to the preservation of our republican institutions ; 
and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and 
the union of the States must and shall be preserved. 

3. That to the union of the States this nation o^-es its unpre- 
cedented increase in population, its siirprising development of 
material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happi- 
ness at home, and its honor abroad ; and we hold in abhorrence 
all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may ; 
and we congratulate the country that no Republican member 
of Congress has uttered or coimtenanced the threats of disunion 
so often made by Democratic members without rebuke and with 
applause from their political associates ; and we denounce those 
threats of disunion in case of a popular overthrow of their 
ascendency as denying the vital principles of a free govern- 
ment, and as an avowel of contemplated treason which it is the 
imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and 
forever silence. 

4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States. 
and especially the rights of each State to order and control its 
own domestic institutions according to its own judgment ex- 
clusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the 
perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends ; and 
we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil 
of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as 
among the gravest of crimes. 

5. That the present Democratic administration has far ex- 
ceeded our worst apprehension^, in its measureless subserviency 
to the exactions of a sectional interest, as especially evinced in 
its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton Consti- 
tution upon the protesting people of Kansas: in construing the 
personal relation between master and servant to involve an un- 
qualified property in persons: in its attempted enforcement, 
everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of Con- 

- and of the Federal courts, and of the extreme pretensions 
of a purely local interest: and in its general and unvarying 
abuse of the power intrusted to it by a confiding people. 

6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extrav- 
agance which pervades every department of the Federal Gov- 
ernment : that a return to rigid economy and accountability is 
indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public 
treasure by favored partisans ; while the recent startling de- 
velopments of fraud and corruption at the Federal metropolis 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 85 

show that an entire Change of administration is imperatively 
demanded. 

7. That the new dogma that the Constitution of its own 
force carries slavery into any or all of the Territories of the 
United States is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with 
the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contem- 
poraneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial prece- 
dent ; is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the 
peace and harmony of the country. j 

8. That the normal condition of all of the territory of the 
United States is that of freedom ; that as our republican fathers, 
when they had abolished slavery in all of our national territory, 
ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty, 
or property without due process of law, " it becomes our duty, 
by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to main- 
tain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to 
violate it ; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Terri- 
torial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence 
to slavery in any Territory of the United States. 

9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave 
trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions 
of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning 
shame to our country and age ; and we call upon Congress to 
take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final sup- 
pression of that execrable traffic. 

10. That in the recent vetoes, by their Federal Governors, of 
the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska prohibit- 
ing slavery in those Territories, we find a practical illustration 
of the boasted Democratic principle of non-intervention and 
popular sovereignty embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and 
a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein. 

11. That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted 
as a State under the constitution recently formed and adopted 
by her people, and accepted by the House of Representatives. 

12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the 
General Government by duties upon imports, sound policy re- 
quires such an adjustment of these imports as to encourage the 
development of the industrial interests of the whole country ; 
and we commend that policy of national exchanges which se- 
cures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remu- 
nerating prices, to machanics and manufacturers an adequate 
reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation 
commercial prosperity and independence. 



86 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of 
the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view 
of the free homestead policy winch regards the settlers as pau- 
pers or suppliants for public bounty ; and we demand the pas- 
sage by Congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead 
measure which has already passed the House. 

14. That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our 
naturalization laws, of any State legislation by which the rights 
of citizenship hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign 
lands shall be abridged or impaired, and in favor of giving a 
full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citi- 
zens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad. 

15. That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor im- 
provements of a national character required for the accommo- 
dation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by 
the Constitution, and justified by the obligation of Government 
to protect the lives and property of its citizens. 

16. That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively de- 
manded by the interests of the whole country ; that the Federal 
Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its 
construction ; and that as preliminary thereto a daily overland 
mail should be promptly established. 

17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles 
and views, we invite the co-operation of all citizens, however 
differing on other questions, who substantially agree with us 
in then affirmance and support. 



THIRD REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 

Adopted at Baltdiore, June 7th, 1861. 

Resolved, That it is the highest duty of every American 
citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of the 
Union and the paramount authority of the Constitution and 
laws of the United States; and that, laying aside all differ- 
ences of political opinion, we pledge ourselves as Union men, 
animated by a common sentiment, and aiming at a common 
object, to do everything in our power to aid the Government in 
quelling by force of arms the rebellion now raging against its 
authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to their 
crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it. 

Resolved, That we approve the determination of the Govern- 



H1$T0R V OF TILE REPl IILH'AN PARTY. 87 

ment of the United States not to compromise with rebels, nor 
to otter any terms of peace except such as may be based upon 
an "unconditional surrender " of their hostility and a return to 
their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United 
States, and that Ave call upon the Government to maintain this 
position and to prosecute the war with the utmost possible 
vigor to the complete suppression of the rebellion, the patriot- 
ism, the heroic valor, and the undying devotion of the Ameri- 
can people to their country and its free institutions. 

Resolved, That, as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes 
the strength, of this rebellion, and as it must be always and 
everywhere hostile to the j:>rmciples of republican govern- 
ment, justice and the national safety demand its utter and com- 
plete extirpation from the soil of the Republic, and that we up- 
hold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the 
Government, in its own defense, has aimed a death-blow at 
this gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such an 
amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in 
conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever 
prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the juris- 
diction of the United States. 

Resolved, That the thanks of the American people are due to 
the soldiers and sailors of the army and navy, who have 
perilled their lives in defense of their country, and in vindica- 
tion of the honor of the flag; that the nation owes to them 
some permanent recognition of their patriotism and valor, and 
ample and permanent provision for those of their survivors who 
have received disabling and honorable wounds in the service of 
the country ; and that the memories of those who have fallen 
in its defense shall be held in grateful and everlasting remem- 
brance. 

Resolved, That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, 
the unselfish patriotism and unswerving fidelity to the Consti- 
tution and the principles of American liberty, with which Abra- 
ham Lincon has discharged, under circumstances of unparal- 
leled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the Presi- 
dential office ; that we approve and indorse, as demanded by 
the emergency and essential to the preservation to the nation, 
and as within the Constitution, the measures and acts which 
he has adopted to defend the nation against its open and secret 
foes ; that we approve especially the proclamation of emanci- 
pation, and the employment as Union soldiers of men here- 
tofore held, in slavery ; and that we have full confidence in his 



88 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 

determination to carry these and all other constitutional meas- 
ures essential to the salvation of the country into full and com- 
plete effect. 

Resolved, That we deem it essential to the general welfare 
that harmony should prevail in the national councils, and we 
regard as worthy of public confidence and official trust those 
only who cordially indorse the principles proclaimed in these 
resolutions, and which should characterize the administration 
of the Government. 

Resolved, That the Government owes to all men employed in 
its armies, without regard to distinction of color, the full pro- 
tection of the laws of war, and that any violation of these laws 
of the usages of civilized nations in the time of war by the 
rebels now in arms, should be made the subject of full and 
prompt redress. 

Resolved, That the foreign immigration, which in the past 
has added so much to the wealth and development of resources 
and increase of power to this nation, the asylum of the op- 
pressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a 
liberal and just policy. 

Resolved, That we are in favor of the speedy construction of 
a railroad to the Pacific. 

Resolved, That the national faith, pledged for the redemp- 
tion of the public debt, must be kept inviolate ; and that for 
this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility 
in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and a just system 
of taxation ; and it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain 
the credit and promote the use of the national currency. 

Resolved, That we approve the position taken by the Govern- 
ment that the people of the United States never regarded with 
indifference the attempt of any European power to overthrow 
by force, or to supplant by fraud, the institutions of any re- 
publican government on the Western Continent, and that they 
view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and inde- 
pendence of this our country, the efforts of any such power to ob- 
tain new footholds for monarchical governments, sustained by a 
foreign military force, in near proximity to the United States. 



FOURTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 
Adopted at Chicago, May 21st, 1868. 

The National Republican Party of the United States, assem- 
bled in National Convention in the city of Chicago, on the 21st 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 89 

day of May, 1868, make the following declaration of principles : 

1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the 
reconstruction policy of Congress, as evidenced by the adop- 
tion, in the majority of the States lately in rebellion, of con- 
stitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all ; and it 
is the duty of the Government to sustain those constitutions 
and to prevent the people of such States from being remitted 
to a state of anarchy. 

2. The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal 
men at the South was demanded by every consideration of pub- 
lic safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be main- 
tained ; while the question of suffrage in all of the loyal States 
properly belongs to the people of those States. 

3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime ; 
and the national honor repuires the payment of the public in- 
debtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home 
and abroad, not only according to the letter but the spirit of 
the laws under which it was contracted. 

4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be 
equalized and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will 
permit. 

5. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preser- 
vation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended 
over a fair period of redemption ; and it is the duty of Con- 
gress to reduce the rate of interest thereon whenever it can be 
honestly done. 

6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to 
so improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money 
at lower rates of interest than we now pay and must continue 
to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, 
is threatened or suspected. 

7. The Government of the United States should be adminis- 
tered with the strictest economy ; and the corruptions which 
have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew John- 
son call loudly for radical reform. 

8. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of 
Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of 
Andrew Johnson, who has acted treacherously to the people 
who elected him and the cause he was pledged to support; 
who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions ; who 
has refused to execute the laws ; who has used his high office 
to induce other officers to ignore and violate the laws ; who 
has employed his executive powers to render insecure the 



90 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

property, the peace, liberty, and life of the citizen; who 
has abused the pardoning power; who has denounced the 
national legislature as unconstitutional ; who has persistently 
and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every 
proper attempt at the reconstruction of the States lately in re- 
bellion ; who has perverted the public patronage into an engine 
of wholesale corruption ; and who has been justly impeached 
for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly denounced 
guilty thereof by the vote of thirty-five Senators. 

9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, 
that because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be 
resisted at every hazard by the United States, as a relic of feu- 
dal times not authorized by the laws of nations, and at war 
with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citi- 
zens are entitled to protection in all of their rights of citizen- 
ship, as though they were native born ; and no citizen of the 
United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to arrest 
and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words 
spoken in this country ; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it 
is the duty of the G-overnment to interfere in his behalf. 

10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, 
there were none entitled to more especial honor than the brave 
soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign 
and cruise, and imperilled their lives in the service of the 
country ; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for 
these brave defenders of the nation are obligations never to be 
forgotten ; the widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the 
wards of the people — a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation's 
protecting care. 

11. Foreign hnmigration, which in the past has added so 
much to the wealth, development, and resources, and increase 
of power to this Eepublic, the asylum of the oppressed of all 
nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and 
just policy. 

12. This convention declares itself in sympathy with all op- 
pressed peoples struggling for their rights. 

13. That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and 
forbearance with which men who have served in the Rebellion, 
but who now frankly and honestly co-operate with us in re- 
storing the peace of the country and reconstructing the South- 
ern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice and 
equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal 
people ; and we favor tne removal of the disqualifications and 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 91 

restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the same measure 
as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be consistent 
with the safety of the loyal people. 

14. That we recognize the great principles laid down in the 
immortal Declaration of Independence as the true foundation 
of democratic government, and we hail with gladness every 
effort toward making these principles a living reality on every 
inch of American soil. 



FIFTH EEPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFOEM. 
Adopted at Philadelphia, June 6th, 1872. 

The Republican Party of the United States, assembled in 
National Convention in the City of Philadelphia, on the 5th and 
6th days of June, 1872, again declares its faith, appeals to its 
history, and announces its position upon the questions before 
the country : 

1. During eleven years of supremacy it has accepted with 
grand courage the solemn duties of the time. It suppressed a 
gigantic rebellion, emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed 
the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. 
Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it criminally punished 
no man for political offenses, and warmly welcomed all who 
proved loyalty by obeying the laws and dealing justly with 
their neighbors. It has steadily decreased with firm hand the 
resultant disorders of a great war, and initiated a wise and 
humane policy toward the Indians. The Pacific Railroad and 
similar vast enterprises have been generously aided and success- 
fully conducted, the public lands freely given to actual settlers, 
immigration protected and encouraged, and a full acknowledg- 
ment of the naturalized citizen's rights secured from European 
powers. A uniform national currency has been provided, repu- 
diation frowned down, the national credit sustained under the 
most extraordinary burdens, and new bonds negotiated at low 
rates. The revenues have been carefully collected and honestly 
applied. Despite annual large reductions of the rates of taxa- 
tion, the public debt has been reduced during General Grant's 
Presidency at the rate of a hundred millions a year, great finan- 
cial crises have been avoided, and peace and plenty prevail 
throughout the land. Menacing foreign difficulties have been 
peacefully and honorably composed, and the honor and power 
of the nation kept in high respect throughout the world. This 



92 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

glorious record of the past is the party's best pledge for the 
future. We believe the people will not intrust the govern- 
ment to any party or combination of men composed chiefly 
of those who have resisted every step of this beneficent pro- 
gress. 

2. The recent amendments to the National Constitution should 
be cordially sustained because they are right, not merely toler- 
ated because they are law, and should be carried out according 
to their spirit by appropriate legislation, the enforcement of 
which can safely be intrusted only to the party that secured 
those amendments. 

3. Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of 
all civil, political, and public rights should be established and 
effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and 
appropriate State and Federal legislation. Neither the law nor 
its administration should admit any discrimination in respect 
of citizens by reason of race, creed, color, or previous condition 
of servitude. 

4. The National G-overnment should seek to maintain honor- 
able peace with all nations, protecting its citizens everywhere, 
and sympathizing with all peoples who strive for greater 
liberty. 

5. Any system of the civil service under which the positions 
of the Government are considered rewards for mere party zeal 
is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore favor a reform of the 
system by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage and 
make honesty, efficiency, and fidelity, the essential qualifica- 
tions for public positions, without practically creating a life 
tenure of office. 

6. We are opposed to further grants of public lands to cor- 
porations and monopolies, and demand that the national do- 
main be set apart for free homes for the people. 

7. The annual revenue, after paying current expenditures, 
pensions, and the interest on the public debt, should furnish a 
moderate balance for the reduction of the principal, and that 
revenue, except so much as may be derived from a tax upon 
tobacco and liquors, should be raised by duties upon importa- 
tions, the details of which should be so adjusted as to aid in 
securing remunerative wages to labor, and promote the indus- 
tries, prosperity, and growth of the whole country. 

8. We hold in undying honor the soldiers and sailors whose 
valor saved the Union. Their pensions are a sacred debt of 
the nation, and the widows and orphans of those who died for 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 93 

their country are entitled to the care of a generous and grateful 
people. We favor such additional legislation as will extend 
the bounty of the Government to all of our soldiers and sailors 
who were honorably discharged, and who in the line of duty 
became disabled, without regard to the length of service or the 
cause of such discharge. 

9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers 
concerning allegiance—" once a subject always a subject" — 
having at last, through efforts of the Republican party, been 
abandoned, and the American idea of the individual's right to 
transfer allegiance having been accepted by European nations, 
it is the duty of our Government to guard with jealous care 
the right of adopted citizens against the assumption of un- 
authorized claims by their former governments, and we urge 
continued, careful encouragement and protection of voluntary 
immigration. 

10. The franking privilege ought to be abolished, and the 
way prepared for a speedy reduction in the rates of postage. 

11. Among the questions which press for attention is that 
which concerns the relations of capital and labor, and the Re- 
publican party recognizes the duty of so shaping legislation as 
to secure full protection and the amplest field for capital, and 
for labor, the creator of capital, the largest opportunities, and 
a just share of the mutual profits of these two great servants 
of civilization. 

12. We hold that Congress and the President have only ful- 
filled an imperative duty in their measures for the suppression 
of violent and treasonable organizations in certain lately re- 
bellious regions, and for the protection of the ballot-box ; and, 
therefore, they are entitled to the thanks of the nation. 

13. We denounce repudiation of the public debt, in any form 
or disguise, as a national crime. We witness with pride the 
reduction of the principal of the debt, and of the rates of in- 
terest upon the balance, and confidently expect that our excel- 
lent national currency will be perfected by a speedy resumption 
of specie payment. 

14. The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the 
loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause 
of freedom. Their admission to the wider fields of usefulness 
is viewed with satisfaction ; and the honest demand of any class 
of citizens for additional rights should be treated with respect- 
ful consideration. 

15. We heartily approve the action of Congress in extending 



94 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

amnesty to those lately in rebellion, and rejoice in the growth 
of peace and fraternal feeling throughout the land. 

16. The Eepublican party proposes to respect the rights re- 
served by the people to themselves as the powers delegated .by 
them to the State and to the Federal Government. It disap- 
proves of the resort to unconstitutional laws for the purpose of 
removing evils, by interference with rights not surrendered by 
the people to either the State or National Government. 

17. It is the duty of the General Government to adopt such 
measures as may tend to encourage and restore American com- 
merce and ship-building. 

18. We believe that the modest patriotism, the earnest pur- 
pose, the sound judgment, the practical wisdom, the incorrup- 
tible integrity, and the illustrious services of Ulysses S. Grant 
have commended him to the heart of the American people, and 
with him at our head we start to-day upon a new march to 
victory. 

19. Henry Wilson, nominated for the Vice-Presidency, known 
to the whole land from the early days of the great struggle for 
liberty as an indefatigable laborer in all campaigns, an incor- 
ruptible legislator and representative man of American institu- 
tions, is worthy to associate with our great leader and share the 
honors which we pledge our best efforts to bestow upon them. 



SIXTH EEPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 
Adopted at Cincinnati, June 15th, 1876. 

When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be 
purged of human slavery, and when the strength of govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people was to be 
demonstrated, the Republican party came into power. Its 
deeds have passed into history, and we look back to them with 
pride. Incited by their memories to high aims for the good of 
our country and mankind, and looking to the future with un- 
faltering courage, hope, and purpose, we, the representatives 
of the party in National Convention assembled make the fol- 
lowing declaration of principles : 

1. The LTnited States of America is a nation, not a league. 
By the combined Avorkings of the National and State Govern- 
ments, under their respective constitutions, the rights of every 
citizen are secured, at home and abroad, and the common wel- 
fare promoted, 



HISTl )R 1 ' OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 05 

2. The Republican party has preserved these governments 
to the hundredth anniversary of the nation's birth, and they 
are now embodiments of the great truths spoken at its cradle — 
' k that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that for the attain- 
ment of these ends governments have been instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned." Until these truths are cheerfully obeyed, or if need 
be vigorously enforced, the work of the Republican party is 
unfinished. 

3. The permanent pacification of the southern section of the 
Union and the complete protection of all of its citizens in the 
free enjoyment of all of their rights is a duty to which the Re- 
publican party stands sacredly pledged. The power to provide 
for the enforcement of the principles embodied in the recent 
constitutional amendments is vested by those amendments in 
the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be the 
solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments 
of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise 
all their constitutional powers for removing any just causes of 
discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every 
American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the ex- 
ercise of all civil, political, and public rights. To this end we 
imperatively demand a Congress and a Chief Executive whose 
courage and fidelity to those duties shall not falter until these 
results are placed beyond dispute or recall. 

4. In the first act of Congress signed by President Grant, the 
National Government assumed to remove any doubts of its pur- 
pose to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, 
and ' ' solemnly pledged its faith to make provision at the earli- 
est practicable period for the redemption of the United States 
notes in coin." Commercial prosperity, public morals, and 
national credit demand that this promise be fulfilled by a con- 
tinuous and steady progress to specie payment. 

5. Under the Constitution the President and heads of de- 
partments are to make nominations for office ; the Senate is to 
advise and consent to appointments, and the House of Repre- 
sentatives is to accuse and prosecute faithless officers. The best 
interest of the public service demands that these distinctions be 
respected; that Senators and Representatives who may be 
judges and accusers should not dictate appointments to office. 
The invariable rule in appointments should have reference to 



96 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

the honesty, fidelity, and capacity of the appointees, giving to 
the party in power those places where harmony and vigor of 
administration require its policy to be represented, but permit- 
ting all others to be filled by persons selected with sole refer- 
ence to efficiency of the public service, and the right of all 
citizens to share in the honor of rendering faithful service to 
the country. 

6. We rejoice in the quickened conscience of the people con- 
cerning political affairs, and will hold all public officers to a 
rigid responsibility, and engage that the prosecution and pun- 
ishment of all who betray official trusts shall be swift, thor- 
ough, and imspairing. 

7. The public school system of the several States is the bul- 
wark of the American Republic, and with a view to its seeurity 
and permanence we recommend an amendment to the Consti- 
tution of the United States forbidding the application of any 
public funds or property for the benefit of any schools or in- 
stitutions under sectarian control. 

8. The revenue necessary for current expenditures and the 
obligations of the public debt must be largely derived from 
duties upon importations, which, so far as possible, should be 
adjusted to promote the interests of American labor and ad- 
vance the prosperity of the whole country. 

9. We reaffirm our opposition to further grants of the public 
lands to corporations and monopolies, and demand that the 
national domain be devoted to free homes for the people. 

10. It is the imperative duty of the Government so to modify 
existing treaties with European Governments that the same 
protection shall be afforded to the adopted American citizen 
that is given to the native born ; and that all necessary laws 
should be passed to protect emigrants in the absence of power 
in the States for that purpose. 

11. It is the immediate duty of Congress to fully investigate 
the effect of the immigration and importation of Mongolians 
upon the moral and material interests of the country. 

12. The Republican party recognizes with approval the sub- 
stantial advances recently made toward the establishment of 
equal rights for women by the many important amendments 
effected by Republican legislatures in the laws which concern 
the personal and property relations of wives, mothers, and 
widows, and by the appointment and election of women to 
the superintendence of education, charities, and other public 
trusts. The honest demands of this class of citizens for addi- 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 07 

tional rights, privileges, and immunities should be treated with 
respectful consideration. 

13. The Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power 
over the Territories of the United States for their government, 
and in the exercise of this power it is the right and duty of 
Congress to prohibit and extirpate, in the Territories, that relic 
of barbarism — polygamy ; and we demand such legislation as 
shall secure this end and the supremacy of American institu- 
tions in all of the Territories. 

14. The pledges which the nation has given to her soldiers 
and sailors must be fulfilled, and a grateful people will always 
,hold those who imperilled their lives for the country's preser- 
vation in the kindest remembrance. 

15. We sincerely deprecate all sectional feeling and tenden- 
cies. We therefore note with deep solicitude that the Demo- 
cratic party counts, as its chief hope of success, upon the elec- 
toral vote of a united South, secured through the efforts of 
those who were recently arrayed against the nation, and we 
invoke the earnest attention of the country to the grave truth 
that a success thus achieved would reopen sectional strife and 
imperil national honor and human rights. 

16. We charge the Democratic party with being the same in 
character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason ; with 
making its control of the House of Representatives the triumph 
and opportunity of the nation's recent foes ; with reasserting 
and applauding in the National Capitol the sentiments of unre- 
pentant rebellion ; with sending Union soldiers to the rear, and 
promoting Confederate soldiers to the front; with deliberately 
proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the Government ; 
with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing 
financial questions ; with thwarting the ends of justice by its 
partisan mismanagement and obstruction of investigation; 
with proving itself, through the period of its ascendency in the 
lower House of Congress, utterly incompetent to administer 
the Government ; and we warn the country against trusting a 
party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and incapable. 

17. The national administration merits commendation for its 
honorable work in the management of domestic and foreign 
affairs, and President Grant deserves the continued hearty 
gratitude of the American people for his patriotism and his 
eminent services, in war and in peace. 

Upon the reading of the resolutions, Edward L. Pierce, of 



98 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Massachusetts, moved to strike out the eleventh resolution; 
which, after debate, was disagreed to — yeas 215, nays 532. 

Edmund J. Davis moved to strike out the fourth resolution 
and substitute for it the following : 

Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to provide for carry- 
ing out the act known as the Eesumption Act of Congress, to 
the end that the resumption of specie payments may not be 
longer delayed. Which, after a brief debate, was disagreed to 
on a viva vo'ce vote. 

The candidates were: Eutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, for 
President ; William A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice-Presi- 
dent. 



SEVENTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 

Adopted at Chicago, June 5th, 1880. 

The Republican Party, in National Convention assembled, at 
the end of twenty years since the Federal Government was first 
committed to its charge, submits to the people of the United 
States this brief report of its administration : It suppressed a 
rebellion which had armed nearly a million of men to subvert 
the national authority. It reconstructed the Union of the 
States, with freedom instead of slavery as its corner-stone. It 
transformed 4,000,000 human beings from the likeness of things 
to the rank of citizens. It relieved Congress from the infa- 
mous work of hunting fugitive slaves, and charged it to see 
that slavery does not exist. It has raised the value of our 
paper currency from thirty-eight per cent, to the par value of 
gold. It has restored upon a solid basis, payment in coin for 
all the national obligations, and has given us a currency ab- 
solutely good and equal in every part of our extended coun- 
try. It has lifted the credit of the nation from the point where 
six per cent, bonds sold at eighty-six to that where four per 
cent, bonds are eagerly sought at a premium. Under its adminis- 
tration railways have increased from thirty-one thousand miles 
in 1860 to more than eighty thousand miles in 1879. Our for- 
eign trade has increased from seven hundred millions to eleven 
hundred and fifty millions in the same time ; and our exports, 
which were twenty millions less than our imports in 18G0, 
were $264,000,000 more than our imports in 1879. Without 
resorting to loans it has, since the war closed, defrayed the 
ordinary expenses of government besides the accruing interest 
on the public debt, and disbursed annually more than $30, 000, 000 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 99 

for soldiers' pensions. It has paid $888,000,000 of the public 
debt, and, by refunding the balance at a lower rate, has re- 
duced the annual interest charge from nearly $151,000,000 to 
less than $89,000,000. All the industries of the country have 
revived, labor is in demand, wages have increased, and through- 
out the entire country there is evidence of a coming prosperity 
greater than Ave have ever enjoyed. Upon this record the Re- 
publican party asks for the continued confidence and support 
of the people, and this convention submits for their approval 
the following statement of the principles and purposes which 
will continue to guide and inspire its efforts ; 

1. We affirm that the work of the last twenty-one years has 
been such as to commend itself to the favor of the nation, and 
that the fruits of costly victories which we have achieved 
through immense difficulties should be preserved; that the 
peace so gained should be cherished ; that the dissevered Union, 
now happily restored, should be perpetuated, and that the lib- 
erties secured to this generation should be transmitted undi- 
minished to future generations ; that the order established and 
the credit acquired should never be impaired ; that the pension 
promises should be paid ; that the debt so much reduced should 
be extinguished by the full payment of every dollar thereof; 
that the reviving industries should be further promoted, and 
that the commerce, already so great, should be steadily en- 
couraged. 

2. The Constitution of the United States is a supreme law, and 
not a mere contract. Out of confederated States it made a sov- 
ereign nation. Some powers are denied the nation, while others 
are denied the States. But the boundary between powers dele- 
gated and those reserved is to be determined by the National 
and not the State tribunals. 

3. The work of popular education is one left to the care of 
the several States, but it is the duty of the National Govern- 
ment to aid that work to the extent of its constitutional ability. 
The intelligence of the nation is but the aggregate intelligence of 
the several States, and the destiny of the nation must be guided, 
not by the genius of any one State, but by the average genius 
of all. 

4. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to make any law 
respecting an establishment of religion, but it is idle to hope 
that the nation can be protected against influence of sectari- 
anism while each State is exposed to its domination. We 
therefore recommend that the Constitution be so amended as to 



100 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

lay the same prohibition on the Legislature of each State, and 
to forbid the appropriation of public funds to the support of 
sectarian schools. 

5. We reaffirm the belief avowed in 1876 that the duties 
levied for the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as to 
favor American labor; that no further grant of the public 
domain should be made to any railroad or other corporation; 
that slavery having perished in the States, its twin barbarity, 
polygamy, must die in the Territories ; that everywhere the pro- 
tection accorded to a citizen of American birth must be secured 
to citizens of American adoption ; that we esteem it the duty of 
Congress to develop and improve our water-courses and harbors, 
but insist that further subsidies to private persons or corpora- 
tions must cease ; that the obligations of the Eepublic to the 
men who preserved its integrity in the day of battle are undi- 
minished by the lapse of fifteen years since their final victory, 
and their perpetual honor is and shall forever be the gratefid 
privilege and sacred duty of the American people. 

6. Since the authority for regular immigration and inter- 
course between the United States and foreign nations rests 
With the Congress of the United States and its treaty-making 
powers, the Republican party, regarding the unrestricted im- 
migration of the Chinese as an evil of great magnitude, invoke 
the exercise of that power to restrain and limit that immigra- 
tion by the enactment of such just, humane, and reasonable 
provisions as will produce that result. 

7. That the purity and patriotism which characterized the 
earlier career of R. B. Hayes, in peace and war, and which 
guided the thought of our immediate predecessors to him for a 
Presidential candidate, have continued to inspire him in his 
career as Chief Executive, and that history will accord to his 
administration the honors which are due to an efficient, just, and 
courteous discharge of the public business, and will honor his 
interpositions between the people and proposed partisan laws. 

8. We charge upon the Democratic party the habitual sacrifice 
of patriotism and justice to a supreme and insatiable lust of 
office and patronage ; that to obtain possession of the National 
Government and State Governments, and the control of place, 
they have obstructed all efforts to promote the purity and to 
conserve the freedom of suffrage ; have labored to unseat law- 
fully elected members of Congress to secure at all hazards the 
majority of the States in the House of Representatives; have 
endeavored to occupy by force . and fraud the places of trust 



History of the republican party. 101 

given to others by the people of Maine, and rescued by the 
courage and action of Maine's patriotic sons ; have, by methods 
vicious in principle and tyrannical in practice, attached parti- 
san legislation to appropriations, upon whose passage the very 
movements of the Government depend ; have crushed the rights 
of the individual, have advocated the principles and sought the 
favor of rebellion against the nation, and have endeavored to 
obliterate the sacred memories of the war and to overcome its 
inestimably good results of nationality, personal freedom, and 
individual equality. The equal, steady, and complete enforce- 
ment of the laws and the protection of all our citizens in the 
enjoyment of all privileges and immunities guaranteed by the 
Constitution, is the first duty of the nation. The dangers of a 
solid South can only be averted by a faithful performance of 
every promise which the nation has made to its citizens. The 
execution of the laws and the punishment of all those who vio- 
late them are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace 
can be secured, and genuine prosperity established throughout 
the South. Whatever promises the nation makes the nation 
must perform, and the nation cannot with safety relegate this 
duty to the States. The solid South must be divided by the 
peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all opinions must there find 
free expression;, and to this end the honest voter must be pro- 
tected against terrorism, violence, or fraud. And we affirm it 
to be the duty and purpose of the Republican party to use all 
legitimate means to restore all States of this Union to the most 
perfect harmony which may be possible. And we submit to 
the practical, sensible people of the United States to say whether 
it would not be dangerous to the dearest interests of our country 
at this time to surrender the administration of the National 
Government to a party which seeks to overthrow the existing 
policy, under which we are so prosperous, and thus bring dis- 
trust and confusion where there is now order, confidence, and 
hope. 

The Republican party, adhering to the principle affirmed by 
its last National Convention, of respect for the constitutional 
rules governing appointments to office, adopts the declaration 
of President Hayes, that the reform of the civil service should 
be thorough, radical, and complete. To this end it demands 
the co-operation of the legislative with the executive depart- 
ment of the Government, and that Congress shall so legislate 
that fitness, ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit 
to the public service. 



102 HISTORY OP THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

EIGHTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM. 
Adopted at Chicago. Jtxe 5th. 1884. 

The Republicans of the L nited States in National Convention 
assembled renew their allegiance to the principles upon which 
they have triumphed in six successive Presidential elections, 
and congratulate the American people en the attainment of so 
many results in legislation and administration by which the 
Republican party has, after saving the L nion, done so much to 
render its institutions just, equal and beneficent — the safe- 
guard of liberty and the embodiment of the best thought and 
highest purposes of our citizens. The Republican party has 
gained its strength by quick and faithful response to the de- 
mands of the people for the freedom and the equality of all 
men ; for a united nation, assuring the rights of all citizens ; 
for the elevation of labor ; for an honest currency ; for purity 
in legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all de- 
partments of the Government ; and it accepts anew the duty 
of leading in the work of progress and reform. 

We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound 
statesmanship, long conspicuous in Congress, gave promise of 
a strong and successful administration, a promise fully real- 
ized during the short period of his office as President of the 
United States. His distinguished success in war and in peace 
has endeared him to the hearts of the American people. 

In the administration of President Arthur we recognize a 
wise, conservative, and patriotic policy, under which the coun- 
try has been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we 
believe his eminent services are entitled to and will receive 
the hearty approval of every citizen. 

It is the first duty of a good Government to protect the 
rights and promote the interests of its own people. The larg- 
est diversity of industry is most productive of general pros- 
perity and of the comfort and independence of the people. 
We therefore demand that the imposition of duties on foreign 
imports shall be made, not for revenue only, but that in rais- 
ing the requisite revenues for the Government such duties 
shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified indus- 
tries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, 
to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, 
may have its just reward, and the laboring man his full 
share in the national prosperity. 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 103 

Against the so-called economic system of the Democratic 
party which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, 
we enter our earnest protest. The Democratic party has 
failed completely to relieve the people of the burden of unnec- 
essary taxation by a wise reduction of the surplus. 

The Eepublican party pledges itself to correct the unequali- 
ties of the tariff, and to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious 
and indiscriminate process of horizontal reduction, but by such 
methods as will relieve the taxpayer without injuring the la- 
borer or the great productive interests of the country. 

We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the 
United States, the serious depression which it is now experi- 
encing and the danger threatening its future prosperity ; and 
we therefore respect the demands of the representatives of 
this important agricultural interest for a readjustment of duty 
upon foreign wool, in order that such industry shall have full 
and adequate protection. 

We have always recommended the best money known to 
the civilized world, and we urge that an effort be made to 
unite all commercial nations in the establishment of an inter- 
national standard, which shall fix for all the relative value of 
gold and silver coinage. 

The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and be- 
tween the States is one of the most important prerogatives of 
the General Government, and the Republican party distinctly 
announces its purpose to support such legislation as will fully 
and efficiently carry out the constitutional power of Congress 
over inter-State commerce. 

The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations 
is a wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of 
the people, and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust 
discrimination and excessive charges for transportation, and 
that shall secure to the people and to the railways alike the fair 
and equal protection of the laws. 

We favor the establishment of a national bureau of labor, 
the enforcement of the eight-hour law, and a wise and judicious 
system of general education by adequate appropriation from 
the national revenues wherever the same is needed. We be- 
lieve that everywhere the protection to a citizen of American 
birth must be secured to citizens of American adoption, and 
we favor the settlement of national differences by interna- 
tional arbitration. 

The Republican party having its birth in a hatred of slave 



104 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC AX PARTY. 

labor, and in a desire that all men may be free and equal, is 
unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competi- 
tion with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad. 
In this spirit we denounce the importation of contract labor, 
whether from Europe or Asia, as an offence against the spirit 
of American institutions, and we pledge ourselves to sustain 
the present law restricting Chinese immigration, and to pro- 
vide such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its 
purposes. 

The reform of the civil service, auspiciously begun under 
Republican administration, should be completed by the further 
extension of the reformed system, already established by law, 
to all the grades of the service to which it is applicable. The 
spirit and purpose of the reform should be observed in all exec- 
utive appointments, and all laws at variance with the objects 
of existing reformed legislation should be repealed, to the end 
that the danger to free institutions which lurks in the power 
of official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided. 

The public lands are a heritage of the people of the United 
States, and should be reserved, as far as possible, for small 
holdings by actual settlers. We are opposed to the acquisition 
of large tracts of these lands by corporations or individuals, 
especially where such holdings are in the hands of non-resident 
aliens, and we will endeavor to obtain such legislation as will 
tend to correct this evil. We demand of Congress the speedy 
forfeiture of all land grants which have lapsed by reason of 
non-compliance with acts of incorporation, in all cases where 
there has been no attempt in good faith to perform the condi- 
tions of such grants. 

The grateful thanks of the American people are due to the 
Union soldiers and sailors of the late war, and the Republican 
party stands pledged to suitable pensions for all who were dis- 
abled and for the widows and orphans of those who died in 
the Avar. The Republican party also pledges itself to the repeal 
of the limitation contained in the arrears act of 1879, so that 
all invalid soldiers shall share alike, and their pensions shall 
begin with the date of disability or discharge, and not with the 
date of their application. 

The Republican party favors a policy which shall keep us 
from entangling alliances with foreign nations, and which 
shall give the right to expect that foreign nations shall refrain 
from meddling in American affairs — the policy which seeks 



HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 105 

peace and can trade with all Powers, but especially with those 
of the Western Hemisphere. 

We demand the restoration of our navy to its old time 
strength and efficiency, that it may, in any sea, protect the 
rights of American citizens and the interests of American 
commerce, and we call upon Congress to remove the burdens 
under which American shipping has been depressed, so that 
it may again be true that we have a commerce which leaves 
no sea unexplored and a navy which takes no law from supe- 
rior force. 

Resolved, That appointments by the President to offices in 
the Territories should be made from the bona fide citizens and 
residents of the Territories wherein they are to serve. 

Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to enact such laws as 
shall promptly and effectually suppress the system of polygamy 
within our territory, and divorce the political from the ecclesi- 
astical power of the so-called Mormon Church, and that the 
law so enacted should be rigidly enforced by the civil authori- 
ties if possible, and by the military if need be. 

The people of the United States, in their organized capacity, 
constitute a Nation and not a mere confederacy of States. The 
National Government is supreme within the sphere of its na- 
tional duty, but the States have reserved rights which should 
be faithfully maintained ; each should be guarded with jealous 
care so that the harmony of our system of government may be 
preserved and the Union be kept inviolate. The perpetuity of 
our institutions rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, an 
honest count and correct returns. 

We denounce the fraud and violence practised by the De- 
mocracy in Southern States by which the will of the voter is 
defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free institutions, 
and we solemnly arraign the Democratic party as being the 
guilty recipient of the fruits of such fraud and violence. We 
extend to the Republicans of the South, regardless of their 
former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge to 
them our utmost earnest efforts to promote the passage of such 
legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever race and 
color, the full and complete recognition, possession and exer- 
cise of all civil and political rights. 



106 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 



EARLY REPUBLICAN LEADERS 

BY CHARLES T. CONGDON. 



There is abundant evidence that slavery in America was 
never germane to the sentiment and conscience of the Amer- 
ican people. The plea sometimes adduced during the anti- 
slavery discussion, that the slaves were forced upon the colo- 
nies by the commercial cupidity of the mother country, was 
not without a modicum of truth. It is historically true that 
both Virginia and South Carolina, in the eighteenth century, 
sought to restrict the importation of slaves. Massachusetts 
and Pennsylvania pressed the adoption of similar measures, 
but in each instance the veto of the colonial governor was in- 
terposed. It must be understood that, notwithstanding slave 
labor was in many of the colonies found profitable, there was 
always sturdy protest against it. The constant testimony of 
the Quakers against it is of record. John Wesley had de- 
nounced it as the sum of all villainies ; Whitefield had spoken 
to the planters of ' ' the miseries of the poor negroes ;" Dr. Hop- 
kins, the eminent theologian, had fitly characterized the traffic 
in its very centre, and to the faces of the Newport merchants 
engaged in it. The Continental Congress in 1774 had pledged 
the United Colonies to discontinue altogether the slave trade. 
Several of the slave colonies themselves joined in the declara- 
tion against the trade. These facts are worth remembering, 
because they show that even at that time there was a strong 
and conscientious feeling against slavery and in favor of jus- 
tice and humanity. The defence of slavery upon moral, theo- 
logical, and political grounds came afterward. It is nearly a 
hundred years since the establishment of the Pennsylvania 
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and Benjamin 
Franklin was made its president. There were other and simi- 
lar societies in different States. The first anti-slavery national 
convention was held in 1795. 

Perhaps the earliest abolitionist intimately connected with 
the anti-slavery agitation which culminated in such great 
results was Benjamin Lundy, a member of the society of 



EARLY REPUBLICAN LEADERS. 107 

Friends, who, born in New Jersey in 1789, in 1815 had estab- 
lished an anti-slavery association called ' ' The Union Humane 
Society," at St. Clairsville, Va. Lundy wrote, traveled, lec- 
tured, and everywhere maintained his crusade against the in- 
stitution. In 1821 he started the Genius of Universal Emanci- 
pation, the office of which he removed to Baltimore in 1824. 
Having made the acquaintance of William Lloyd Garrison, he 
engaged the assistance of that gentleman in the editorial man- 
agement of the newspaper. Lundy was the first to establish 
anti-slavery periodicals and deliver anti-slavery lectures. It is 
stated that from 1820 to 1830 Lundy traveled twenty -five thou- 
sand miles, five thousand on foot, visited nineteen States, made 
two voyages to Hayti, and delivered more than two hundred 
addresses. 

The first number of Mr. Garrison's Liberator was published in 
Boston, in January, 1831. The history of the agitation which 
was then begun has already been partially written and is famil- 
iar to many still living. From this time forth to the bloody 
issue, and the final triumph of right and of justice, slavery began 
to be felt in the politics of the country. L^ndoubtedly a vast 
majority of both the Whig and Democratic parties were upon 
its side. Upon the other there were two classes. There was 
that which Avould keep no terms with slavery, but at all times 
and seasons yielded not one jot or tittle, but demanded its im- 
mediate abolition. There were others who took more moderate 
ground ; who doubted the policy of instant abolition ; who ad- 
hered to the parties with which they found themselves allied ; 
but who nevertheless insisted upon the right of free discussion 
and the right of petition. The great champion of this right in 
the House of Representatives was John Quincy Adams. He 
had gone from the White House to the House of Representa- 
tives with no special feelings of kindness for the Southern 
States or for their political leaders. But he was always care- 
ful to declare that personally he was not in favor of the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District, while he deemed the right of pe- 
tition ' ' sacred and to be vindicated at all hazards. " His position 
must not be misunderstood. Asserting energetically the right 
of the petitioners to be heard, he had no sympathy with their 
opinions. He did not regard the question of slavery in the 
District as of much consequence. He took no humanitarian 
ground. He fought the battle, and fought it nobly, but it was 
as a constitutional lawyer, and not as an abolitionist. He ar- 
gued the matter as he argued the famous Amistad case, upon 



108 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

strictly legal principles. Fortunately, they happened to be upon 
the right side, and Mr. Adams's services at this time were un- 
questionably of great value to the cause of freedom. 

Among the few who took an entirely different ground, and 
who avowed their sympathy with the prayer of the petition- 
ers, was William Slade, of Vermont, who was in the House 
from 1831 to 1843, and afterward Governor of Vermont. He 
said, with manly precision and courage, ' ' The petitioners wish 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia ; so do I. 
They wish to abolish the slave-trade in the District; so do I." 
But protest at such a time was vain, and the petitions were 
laid upon the table by a great majority. Agitation must at 
any cost be arrested. Tranquillity must by any expedient be 
secured. In the Senate at the same time a similar controversy 
was going on. Singularly enough, the champion of the right 
of petition here was Mr. James Buchanan, who spoke and voted 
for the reception of the petitions, though he also advocated the 
instant rejection of their prayer ; and he actually succeeded, to 
the great indignation of Mr. Calhoun, in carrying his point. 
Mr. Morris, of Ohio, vindicated the right, and declared that "no 
denial of it by Congress could prevent them from expressing 
it." Similar ground Avas taken by Mr. Prentiss, of Vermont. 
Mr. Webster, not then so regardless of the popular opinion as 
he afterward became, advocated the reference of the petitions 
to the proper committees. 

Among those who in those dark days of Northern subser- 
viency nobly stood up for free speech and a free press, was 
Governor Joseph Eitner, of Pennsylvania, who in one of his mes 
sages said: " Above all, let us never yield up the right of free- 
discussion of any evil which may arise in the land, or any part 
of it." Thaddeus Stevens, then chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee of the Pennsylvania House, took ground equally 
brave and independent. The Southern Legislatures had asked 
of the Northern States the enactment of laws for the suppres- 
sion of free discussion. "No State," said Mr. Stevens, "can 
claim from us such legislation. It would reduce us to a vassal- 
age but little less degrading than that of the slaves." But in 
no State can the progress of this great controversy be more 
satisfactorily observed than in Massachusetts. There the abo- 
litionists were most uncompromising and determined, and so 
respectable were they in numbers and character that those who 
were opposed to their opinions and proceedings were not long 
afterward glad enough to get their votes in seasons of particu- 



EARL Y REPUBLICAN LEADERS. 100 

lar emergency. But Massachusetts respectability, taking its 
tone from Boston, as the tone of Boston was governed by its 
commercial interests, was then ready for almost unconditional 
surrender, of all which it should have held most dear, to the 
slave power. Edward Everett was Governor of the State, 
and went so far as to suggest that anti-slavery discussion 
"might be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." 
This part of Governor Everett's message was referred to a 
committee of which Mr. George Lunt was chairman. Be- 
fore this committee appeared in their own defence such 
abolitionists as Ellis Gray Loring, William Lloyd Garrison, 
Dr. Charles Follen, Samuel J. May, and William Goodell. 
It is almost impossible now to conceive of the indignities as 
possible to which these gentlemen were subjected by the chair- 
man, Mr. Lunt. Dr. Follen, one of the mildest and most amia- 
ble of men, was peremptorily silenced. "You are here," said 
Mr. Lunt to Mr. May, " to exculpate yourselves if you can "— 
as if the remonstrants had been criminals at the bar of public 
justice. Such treatment excited great indignation among those 
who were present merely as spectators. Dr. William Ellery 
Channing — the story is still related in Boston — walked across 
the room to offer Mr. Garrison his hand, and to speak to him 
words of sympathy and encouragement. From that day the 
progress of anti-slavery opinions in Massachusetts went on 
almost without cessation. They colored and affected the ac- 
tion of political parties ; they broke up and scattered an organ- 
ization which had held the State in fee for more than a gener- 
ation ; they proved themselves superior to all the reports and 
resolutions which such men as Mr. Lunt could bring forward ; 
they won for their supporters all the distinction which place 
and popular confidence could confer, and reduced those who 
rejected them to the leanest of minorities. All things worked 
together for good. The murder of Lovejoy, at Alton in 1837, was 
a triumph of slavery which proved in the end one of the most 
fatal of its misfortunes. It sent Dr. Channing to Faneuil Hall 
to protest against such an outrage upon law and justice. It sent 
there Wendell Phillips to make his first speech, which ren- 
dered him at once famous. It created a public sympathy in 
Boston and throughout the State which was never lost, which 
the immense influence of Mr. Webster was unable to over- 
come, and which prepared the way, first for the Free Soil and 
they for the Republican party. Boston Conservatism occa- 
sionally made a good deal of noise afterward, but it never car- 



HO HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

ried another election. "Politics." said Mr. Franklin Pierce 
about that time m the Senate, ' * are beginning to mingle with 
that question." And l 'he profoundly regretted that individ- 
uals of both parties were submitting to the catechism of the 
abolitionists." Mr. Pierce was right ; but there was a good 
deal more to come. 

The intense hostility of a portion of the Northern people to 
the measures and methods of the early abolitionists did not 
and could not prevent a gradual change in the temper and the 
opinions of vast numbers of reflecting and conscientious men, 
who saw the sole remedy only in political action. The au- 
dacity of the slave power, never for a moment satisfied, gave 
its friends at the North no opportunity of appealing success- 
fully to Northern interests. The most imprudent of mankind 
were always doing something which fanned the slumbering 
embers again into a blaze. They would not let well enough 
alone. They would not temporize even when to do so would 
have been greatly to then* advantage. South Carolina, for in- 
stance, had been for years in the habit of imprisoning colored 
seamen during their detention at Charleston. Massachusetts 
appointed Samuel Hoar, of Concord, the agent of the State to 
prosecute suits to test the legality of these imprisonments. Mr. 
Hoar was not only a gentleman of great personal worth, but 
he belonged to one of the oldest families in the State, and for 
many years had been respected as a jurist of great ability and 
integrity. To what indignities he was subjected, and how he 
was expelled from the State, the history of those times will 
never fail to tell. One result of this was to make abolitionists 
of a great number of highly respectable people who otherwise 
might never have been moved from the path of the strictest 
conservatism. The admission of Texas as a slave State brought 
into the anti-slavery ranks, ill-defined as they were, great num- 
bers of persons who otherwise might have kept silence for- 
ever. It caused a meeting of protest in Faneuil Hall, over 
which Charles Francis Adams presided. The resolutions were 
drawn up by Charles Sumner. They were presented by John 
G. Palfrey. Garrison and Phillips were there, and for once 
the anti-slavery men of the non-political and the political 
schools worked together. The matter was discussed in the 
colleges and the law schools, in the factories and work-shops ; 
it was then that the great political revolution in so many States 
began. Above all. it sharply defined the line between those 
Whigs and Democrats who, after a political wrong had been 



EARL Y REPUBLICAN LEA DERS. Ill 

accomplished, were willing quietly to submit, and those who 
thought that the wrong would be a fair warning against others 
of a similar character. If the motive of annexation was the 
preservation of slavery, then there was all the more reason for 
watching slavery closely. 

The case of Mr. Giddings is an excellent illustration of the 
folly by which the Whig party alienated many of its best 
friends. If he was anything, Mr. Giddings was every inch a 
Whig. He clung to his political organization when many 
another man would have left it in disgust. He was, while Mr. 
John Quincy Adams survived, the steady and able ally of that 
statesman in the House of Representatives. But neither this 
nor his strong anti-slavery sentiments prevented him from 
being a warm friend and supporter of Henry Clay. He clung 
to his party until his party nominated General Taylor. This 
was a supposed submission to the slave power, though it did 
not turn out to be afterward, which sent Mr. Giddings into the 
Free Soil ranks in 1848. What men went with him, and what 
came of that movement, even after it had to all appearance 
utterly failed, is well enough known. No wonder Mr. Giddings 
felt that the North should have different men in the public 
councils, when with a large majority it could not shield him 
from outrages in the House to which the lowest of men would 
hardly have submitted outside of it. 

The Democratic party often exhibited as little wisdom. It 
had not, for instance, a stronger and more able soldier than Mr. 
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire. Personally very popular, he 
was an excellent debater, never found wanting in an emer- 
gency, and one who was alike equal to attack or defence. He 
was, however, foremost in his denunciation of the plan for the 
annexation of Texas — a measure which he characterized as 
" eminently calculated to provoke the scorn of earth and the 
judgment of Heaven." He had already been nominated for the 
next Congress by the Democrats of his district, but another 
convention was called, and the name of Mr. Hale was taken 
from the ticket. It is to tell the whole historical story to say 
that this day's absurd action made Mr. Hale a Senator of the 
United States. This is the story everywhere. The Whig Na- 
tional Convention, which treated with such utter contempt the 
protests of anti-slavery Whigs, was the last which met with 
any prospect of good fortune before it. The day was pregnant 
with great events, and great political changes were at hand. 
The Barnburner revolt in New York assisted in forwarding 



112 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

the great reform. There were yet to be defeats, and men's 
minds were not entirely fixed ; but both great parties in 1848 
sealed their political doom with suicidal hands. Mr. Allen, of 
Massachusetts, had said in the Whig National Convention, ' ' It 
it evident the terms of union between the Whigs of the North 
and the Whigs of the South are the perpetual surrender by the 
former of the high offices and powers of the Government to 
their Southern confederates. To these terms, I think, sir, the 
free States will no longer submit." Mr. Wilson declared that 
he would ' ' not be bound by the proceedings of the conven- 
tion ;" and Mr. Stanley, of North Carolina, with far-seeing 
sagacity, retorted that he was "injuring no one but himself" 
— a declaration which in the light of subseqent events seems 
sufficiently amusing. 

Before the dissatisfied delegates went home the Buffalo Con- 
vention was decided upon. The first State Convention of the 
new party in Massachusetts was held in Worcester, and was 
attended by men who have since been often enough heard of — 
by Henry Wilson, Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, E. 
Rockwood Hoar, to mention no others. The action of the 
Buffalo Convention in nominating Mr. Van Buren for President 
brought a great portion of the Democratic party to the new or- 
ganization, especially in Massachusetts, and in that State the 
party has never fairly recovered from the events of that cam- 
paign. The nomination of Charles Francis Adams for Vice- 
President was deemed a sufficient concession to the bolting 
Whigs. It was a ticket for an honest man to support, although 
no prospect of success was before it. The campaign started 
with great spirit in Ohio, being led by Chase, Giddings, Root, 
and other distinguished men. The new party went through a 
campaign which resulted in entire defeat and — in victory ! But 
it had cast two hundred and ninety-thousand votes for freedom ; 
it had defeated a candidate the avowed supporter of slavery ; 
and it had secured the election of another who, although a 
slaveholder, was at least not a trimmer or a doughface. 

Here as well as anywhere may be considered the distinctive 
character of those who early engaged in this war against slavery 
extension. It need not be said that coalition was necessary, and 
coalition always implies the co-operation of those who find each 
other useful, but who may be governed by widely different 
motives. Those who had conscientiously entertained a hatred 
of slavery found an opportunity of alliance with others, whose 
hostility was at least recent, and who had managed to get along 






EARL 7 REPUBLICAN LEADERS. 1 1 3 

with the South so long as that section conceded to them a fair 
share in the Government. The Democratic wing of the Free 
Soil party made great pretensions to anti-slavery sentiment. 
Among those who were loudest was John Van Buren, of New 
York. He went so far as to say at Utica, in the Barnburners' 
Convention, ' ' We expect to make the Democratic party of this 
State the great anti-slavery party of this State, and through it 
to make the Democratic party of the United States the great 
anti-slavery party of the United States." Subsequent events 
showed that this meant very little save the desire for revenge 
on the part of a son who was irritated by what he regarded 
as the personal wrongs of a father. Not many years elapsed 
before John Van Buren was again in the Democratic party, 
when it was even more thoroughly than before the servant of 
slavery, with the immoral aspects of the institution more fully 
developed. With him returned to their allegiance many thou- 
sands of Democrats. He was supple, clever, and adroit. As 
a platform speaker he had few equals ; but that he was alto- 
gether sincere perhaps it would be too much to say. 

No man is personally identified more historically with the 
Republican party than Henry Wilson. He had great virtues 
and great faults of character. His natural impulses were 
warm and generous. He had absolute physical courage, and 
when his passions were aroused he was a formidable enemy. 
He could put a personal injury in abeyance if he thought it 
for his advantage to do so ; but he had a long memory, and 
although he might forgive he never forgot. He had great skill 
in party manoeuvre, and a perfect faith in party management. 
It was perhaps his real misfortune that his first political suc- 
cesses of any importance were secured by coalitions. It is true 
that many of these were originated by himself, but he was not, 
it must be said in his defense, the originator of the opportunity. 
He was perfectly frank in his avowal of what he thought to be 
not only the expediency but the virtue of joining in any polit- 
ical movement which would advance his own political opinions, 
without much regard for appearances. Others acquiesced in 
such bargains — Mr. Wilson went farther, for he believed in 
them. There was no nicety, no moral scrupulosity in his consti- 
tution. This made it easy for him to act with anybody or every- 
body ; and to this easy political virtue he owed his first election 
to the United States Senate. He joined the Know-Nothing party 
without in the least accepting its particular tenets. He did 
not hesitate to receive Democratic votes. In Massachusetts the 



114 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Whig party was in his way, and in the way of the anti-slavery 
views which he undoubtedly entertained, and he determined 
upon its destruction. He never apologized for alliances which 
others thought to be immoral. He was a leader of those who 
regarded slavery as sinful and impolitic ; he himself undoubt- 
edly shared in their opinions; but he did not hesitate in an 
emergency to act with those whose views were widely differ- 
ent. After his success was definitely assured he became more 
independent, and, it must be added, more consistent. His 
capacity for public affairs was of a first-rate order, and he had 
entirely risen above the defects of his early education. He was 
a born political soldier, and did quite as much as any man to 
bring the Eepublican party to compactness and coherence. 

Mr. Charles Sumner was of a character widely different f rom_ 
that of his colleague. The latter, with all his merits, was in 
grain a politician ; Mr. Sumner was perhaps the worst politician 
in the United States. While the struggle which resulted in 
making him a Senator of the United States was going on in the 
Massachusetts legislature, he kept resolutely aloof from the 
contest, and neither by word nor by deed indicated his 
approval or disapproval of the coalition. Even when the pro- 
longed contest resulted in his election, he left the city of 
Boston that he might avoid the congratulations of his support- 
ers of either sort. He followed what he called "a fine of 
reserve. " In a letter to Mr. Wilson he thanked that gentleman 
for ; 'the energy, determination, and fidelity" with which he 
had fought the battle, and said, " For weal or woe, you must 
take the responsibility of having placed me in the Senate of the 
United States. " It is doubtful whether Mr. Sumner did entirely 
approve the means which were used to make him in the first 
instance a Senator; but, like other anti-slavery Whigs and 
Democrats, he acquiesced. So sturdy a man as Robert Rantoul, 
Jr. , accepted a seat in the Senate under precisely the same con- 
ditions, and he was elected to the House of Representatives in 
the same way. Even Horace Mann defended the coalition. 
Mr. Sumner's career in the Senate was never in the least influ- 
enced by the necessity of conciliating Democrats at home ; and 
long before his re-election anything like coalition had, by the 
march of events, been made unnecessary. Ultimately Mr. Sum- 
ner's hold upon the hearts of the people of Massachusetts be- 
came so strong that the efforts of a petty clique to unseat him, 
could not under any circumstances probably have been success- 
ful. He was regarded, especially after the felonious assault 



EARL T REPUBLICAN LEADERS. 115 

upon him in the Senate Chamber, as a martyr to the cause. He 
was a great man for great occasions ; and by long familiarity 
with the business of the Senate he became much more prac- 
tically useful than he was at first ; but he could not be consid- 
ered a popular member, and there were those who thought him 
somewhat arrogant. He never worked well in the traces of 
party, and there was something of the virtuoso in his character, 
which his less refined associates did not relish. His speeches 
were very carefully prepared, but they were often loaded with 
learning, and the more elaborate portions of them smelt of the 
lamp. His name, however, is inseparably and most honorably 
connected with the greatest of events, and he will doubtless be 
remembered long after he ceases to be read. 

Charles Francis Adams had been among the earliest of the 
Conscience Whigs of Massachusetts. His distrust of the South 
and of the slaveholder was natural, for he had received a large 
inheritance of family grievances, real or supposed. None of 
them, however, prevented him from permitting his name to be 
used with that of Mr. Van Buren, and he accepted the nomina- 
tion for the Vice-Presidency from the Buffalo Convention with 
perfect complacency. But if his passions were strong, his 
political tastes were occasionally fastidious and probably he 
never thoroughly relished the Massachusetts coalition. He 
exhibited on many occasions the same remarkable mixture of 
ardor and conservatism which characterized his illustrious 
father. He could lead sometimes with special ability, but he 
could not be easily or often led. Party harness sat very easily 
upon his shoulders, and he could throw it off whenever he 
pleased. But of the new party he was an invaluable member, 
for his training for public affairs had been first-rate ; the his- 
torical associations of his name were interesting and attractive ; 
he was very wealthy ; and he was a master of political science. 
Opposed as he was to the coalition which elected Mr. Sumner, 
he shared that opposition with Eichard H. Dana Jr. , Samuel 
Hoar, John G. Palfrey, and some other eminent Free Soilers. 
Ultimately, of course, these differences of opinion subsided; 
but Mr. Adams has shown, with other members of the party, 
that the same freedom of judgment which had led to its forma- 
tion still guided many of its choicest spirits. Of the brilliant 
career of Mr. Adams, subsequent to these events, it is unneces- 
sary here to speak. The present time finds him a member of 
that Democratic party which he has so often and so bitterly 



116 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

denounced. The fact is to .be most pleasantly regarded as evi- 
dence of the perfect independence of his character. 

All the temptations which led several prominent Whigs to 
repudiate the nomination of General Taylor in 1848 had no 
effect upon Mr. Willian H. Seward. His time had not yet 
come, but it was well known that his political opinions were of 
an anti-slavery color, and that he was particularly sensitive 
upon the point of surrendering fugitives from slavery. These 
views began to develop more definitely after his election to the 
United States Senate in 1849. In the debate upon the admission 
of California into the Union in 1850, he used the phrase - ' higher 
laiv than the Constitution, " a part of which has become prover- 
bial. He fought the compromises to the last. In his speech at 
Rochester in 1858 he had alluded to the "irrepressible conflict, 1 ' 
and this phrase also has become famous, as well as the declara- 
tion that "the United States must and will become either 
entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free labor nation." 
In 1860 in the Senate he avowed that his vote should never be 
given to sanction slavery in the common territories of the 
United States, " or anywhere else in the world." His services 
as Secretary of State during the Rebellion were of the first 
order, and especially his management of our foreign relations. 
Undoubtedly his wisdom and forethought saved us upon more 
than one occasion from a foreign war. His adherence to office 
under President Johnson did much to injure his popularity, 
and perhaps he was not sorry definitely to retire from public 
life in 1869, and to find a new and rational pleasure in pro- 
longed foreign travel. Mr. Seward was a man of fine literary 
tastes of no mean literary skill ; he had the faculty of acquir- 
ing and of keeping friends ; and in the social circle he was de- 
voted and affectionate. The disappointment of his public life, 
which considered altogether was eminently successful, was his 
failure to secure the Presidency ; but it must have been an al- 
leviation to know that he shared this with so many eminent 
men. His public career was peculiarly consistent, and perhaps 
of all public characters of his time he was oftenest found upon 
the side of the oppressed and the unfortunate, even in cases 
which had no political significance. 

The man who even before 1846, and in that year, argued that 
slavery was local and dependent upon State law, was Salmon 
P. Chase, of Ohio, and nothing could be more astonishing than 
the changes which, ultimately placed such a lawyer upon the 
bench of the Supreme Court, and in the place just before occu- 



/<;. I BL Y REPUBLICAN LEADERS. 117 

pied by Chief -Justice Taney. He was one of the few remarkable 
men to whom the old Liberty party was indebted for an exist- 
ence, to which the Republican party also owes something. He 
was the first or among the first to propose the Free Soil move- 
ment and the Buffalo Convention in 1848, and over this body he 
presided. He too was sent to the United States Senate by a 
coalition of Free Soil members and Democrats of the Ohio Leg- 
islature in 1849 ; but the Ohio Democrats in their State Conven- 
tion had already declared slavery to be a national evil, which i 
rendered the coalition at least not absurd and contradictory. 
Mr. Chase made haste to disavow all connection with the Demo- 
crats after the nomination of Mr. Pierce in 1852, upon a pro- 
slavery platform. With his record and strong opinions upon 
the subject of slavery the came naturally into the Republican 
party, and into the Cabinet of President Lincoln as Secretary 
of the Treasury in 1861. As Chief -Justice of the United States, 
his great learning, his sense of equity, and his liberal views of 
important public questions won him a permanent reputation 
as a lawyer. He did not always agree with the policy of the 
Republican party, and he was even talked of as a candidate of 
the Democrats for the Presidency — a nomination which was 
not accorded to him, but which it was understood that he was 
willing to accept under certain conditions. He is an excellent 
instance of what the reader of this chapter must have observed 
—the tendency, during stormy political seasons, of really able 
men to cut loose the bonds of party and to seek in new affilia- 
tions the accomplishment of cherished purposes and the vin- 
dication of profound convictions. Judge Chase, in his own 
State, was a man of unbounded popularity. This was never 
shaken by any course which he thought fit to pursue ; and to 
the last no man ever doubted his integrity. 

Not as President, but as one of the leaders who made the 
Republican party possible, the career of Abraham Lincoln be- 
fore he was elected to the office in which he died a martyr to 
his principals, ought here to be alluded to. In Congress, which 
he entered in 1848, he doubted the constitutionality of slavery 
in the District of Columbia ; he suggested the expediency of 
abolishing the slave-trade there ; and he warmly advocated the 
Wilmot Proviso. When the project for the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise was brought forward, he found his place in 
the great contest at once. His platform duels with Douglas in 
Illinois will never be forgotten, and his speech at Springfield 
utterly demolished the sophistry of the "great principle" 



118 HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

which asserted that a man in Nebraska might not only govern 
himself but also govern other persons without their consent. 
He too declared that no government could endure permanently" 
which was " half slave and half free." How well he demeaned 
himself in his high office it is unnecessary to say. He grew 
larger and larger under the pressure of the terrible situation ; 
he was as tender as a woman, and as stern as a Roman ; he 
thought, planned, acted, always with perfect caution, with 
native sagacity, with a perfect appreciation of the situation. It 
was no accident, it was the impulse of character and the 
prompting of the heart which led Abraham Lincoln into the 
Republican party, of which he was a defender and ornament. 
In the most doubtful days, if there be a party which is on the 
side of justice and humanity, a man with a heart is sure to find 
it ; and if there be another, its exact opposite, pledged to op- 
pression, to selfishness, and to corruption, the man without a 
heart is sure to drift into it. 

In this chapter many honored names have been necessarily 
omitted. The object has been to refer to only a few of the 
most prominent as examples of fidelity to great principles and 
to ideas worthy of the support of the American people. After 
all, more have been omitted than mentioned. We might have 
spoken of Horace Mann, the uncompromising philanthropist, 
the profound scholar, and the life-long advocate of popular edu- 
cation ; of John G. Palfrey, who was among the first of Massa- 
chusetts Whigs to risk all save the reward of a good conscience 
for the sake of the slave ; of the young and eloquent Burlin- 
game, first known as a popular speaker, but who afterward 
developed into a most able diplomatist ; and we might have 
added something of the magnetic influence which drew the 
young men of the North about the banner of freedom, and 
awakened an enthusiasm which made the strict lines and the 
self-seeking policy of the old parties distasteful of their gener- 
ous natures. Happy will the nation be should any such great 
emergency again arise, if once more the old honesty shall be 
awakened and the old enthusiasm stimulated ! 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES 



THE POPULAR AND ELECTORAL VOTE AT EACH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 
SINCE THE FORMATION OF 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 



REDUCTION OF THE PUBLIC DEBT 



120 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAE VOTE OF 1856. 



1 Alabama 

2 Arkansas... 

3 California. . 

4 Connecticut 

5 Delaware. . . 

6 Florida 

7 Georgia 

8 Illinois 

9 Indiana 

10 Iowa 

11 Kentucky... 

12 Louisiana... 

Maine 

Maryland.. 
Massaehus's 
Michigan. . 
Mississippi. 
Missouri . . . 
N.H'pshire. 
New Jersey 
New York. 
N. Carolina 

Ohio 

P'nsylvania 
R. Island.. 

26 S Carolina 

27 (Tennessee 

28 jTexas 

29 | Vermont.. 

30 Virginia .. 

31 I Wisconsin 



James Buchanan, 
Democratic. 



Vote. 



Maj. 



46,739 
21,910 
53.365 
34,995 
8,004 
6,3-8 
56,578 
105,348 
118,670 
36,170 
74,(14? 
22,164 i 
39,080 ; 
39,115 
3!),24i) 
52,136 
35,446 
58,164 I 
32,78!) 
46,943 
195,878 
48,246 
170,874 
230.710 
6,680 
Electors 
73,638 
31,169 
10,569 
89,706 
52,843 



| Total ' l,a38,169 

I Buchanan's Plurality.. 



18,187 
11,123 
*17,200 



1,521 
1.525 
14.350 

+9,159 
1,905 



6,912 
1,455 



11,251 
9,640 



♦18,605 
" 11,360 



chosnn 
7.400 
15.530 



*9,105 



142.353 
+496,905 



John C. Fremont, 
Republican. 



Vote. 


Maj. 










20,69i 

42,715 

308 




5,105 








96,189 

94,375 

43,951 

314 




"'i'7,784' 




67,379 

281 

108,190 

71,762 


24,974 

"'49,324' 
17,966 






38,345 
28,338 
276,007 


5,m 


480,129 


187,497 
147,510 
11,467 
by the 


*16,623 


3,112 
Legis- 






39.5-U 

291 

66,090 


28,447 
""12,668' 



1,341,264 146,730 



M. Fillmore, 




American. 


Total 




Vote. 


Vote. 


Maj. 




28,552 




75,291 


10.787 




32,697 


36,165 




110,221 


2.615 




80,325 


6,175 




14,487 


4.K33 




11,191 


42,228 




98.806 


37,444 




238,981 


22,386 




235,431 


9,180 




89,304 


67,416 




142,372 


20,709 




42,873 


3,3^5 




109,784 


47.460 


8,064 


86,856 


19.626 




167,056 


1.660 




125,558 


24,195 




59,641 


48,524 




106,688 


422 




71.556 


24,115 




99,396 


124,604 




596,487 


36,886 




Si, 132 


28,126 




38H.497 


82,175 




360,395 


1,675 




19,822 


lature 




66,178 


139,816 


15.639 




46,808 


545 




50,675 


60,310 




150.X07 


579 




119,512 


874,534 


8,064 


4,053,967 



* Plurality over Fillmore. + Plurality over Fremont. % Plurality over Buchanan. 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



121 



ELECTORAL VOTE OF 1856. 





Pres 




V. 


Pres. 


3 

o 


States. 


Pres 




V. 


Pres. 




States. 


i 

a 

,4 

n 




a 

cu 
h 


c 

s 

5 


0) 

a 

V 

M 

o 

n 




q 


A 

1 

§ 


1 

o 

3 

pq 


"3 

o 

a 


£ 



a 


60 

'u 

a 

pq 


a 

S 

p 


a 



CO 

"3 
a 

O 


1 


1 


Alabama 

Arkansas. . . 
California. . 
Connecticut 
Delaware. . . 

Florida 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 


9 
4 
4 

'T 
3 

10 
11 
13 






9 
4 
4 






9 
4 
4 
6 
3 
3 
10 
11 
13 
4 
12 
6 
8 
8 
13 
6 


17 Mississippi. . 

18 Missouri 

19 N. Hamps'e . 

20 New Jersey. 

21 New York.. 

22 N. Carolina. 

23 Ohio 


7 
9 

"Y 

10' 






7 
9 

'7' 






7 


9 


"6' 








9 


3 
4 


"6 




5 




5 




5 


<\ 




3 

3 
10 
11 
13 


35 
'23' 




35 
23' 
"4" 




35 


fi 








10 

27 

"&' 
12 
4 


10 








23 


8 










24 Pennsylv'ia 

25 R. Island.... 

26 S. Carolina . 

27 Tennessee.. . 

28 Texas 

29 Vermont 

30 Virginia .... 
31 1 Wisconsin.. 

Total.... 


27 

"'8' 
12 
4 

'io' 
174 


2? 


9 






"4" 




4 




4 


in 


i 




8 


ii 


Kentucky... 
Louisiana. . . 


12 
6 




12 
6 






12 


19! 










"5' 
"5' 

114 


8 


4 


18 


8 




8 


"s" 


5 
"5' 
114 




5 


11 






8 






15 


15 


1=> 


Mass'chu'ts. 
Michigan . . . 




13 
6 




13 
6 


5 


Ifi 






8 


174 










296 



m 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAR VOTE OF 1860. 



States. 


j 
A. Lincoln, S. A. Douglas, 
Republican. ; Ind Dem. j 


J.C Breckin- 
ridge. Dem. 


John Bell, ! 
Const. Lnion. 


Total , 
Vote. 




Vote. | Maj. i 


Vote. 1 Maj. 


Vote, j Maj. 


Vote. | Maj. j 






' ' 


13,651 


48.831 7.855 


27,825 
20.094 
6,817 

.-.291 

42.886 




90,307 






5,2-27 

*• 38.516 

15,522 

1,083 

367 
11.590 

115,509 
55,111 

7,625 
26,693 

5.966 
34.372 
65,057 
11,920 

3,283 
58.801 

62,801 

312.510 

2,701 


28,732 3,411 

34.334 

14.641 

7,347 +3,48:! 

8.5(3 2,739 

51,889 +9.0G3 


54,053 
118,310 

77,146 
16.(49 
14,347 


3 California. 

4 Coun'icut. 

5 Delaware.. 




39.173 *657 

10,238 

3.815 







106,365 


8 Illinois ... 

9 Indiana. .. 

10 Iowa 

11 Kentucky. 


172.161 5,629 

12,4^7 
1.861 


2.44H 3,913 

12J85 5vWB 

1.04S 1,763 

53.143 66,1 5H 

22.681 +2.477 . . - 


33H, (S3 
273.143 
123,331 

146,216 
50,510 


13 Maine 

14 Maryland. 

15 Mass 

16 Michigan.. 

17 Minnesota 

-iss'ppi 

19 Missouri.. 

20 N. Hainp.. 

21 X. Jersey.. 

22 New York. 


62.S11 27.TL4 

2.294 

106.533 43,891 

■*iV,flBB '.'.'.".'.'.'.'. 
37.519 9,085 




' +429 
'4.477' 


5.939 
865 
748 
40,797 
31,317 
2,112 


+V22" 
"li.4'7'4 


2.'H6 
41,760 
22.331 

405 

62 

25.040 

58,372 

441 


97,918 
92.502 

169.175 

154.747 
34,799 
69,130 

165,518 
65,953 

121.125 


362,646 50,136 










675,156 
90,030 




43,339 

11.405 

3,0116 

17S.S71 

iature. 
64,709 
47,548 


648 


44.990 

12,194 

183 

12,776 




... 


240hio 

25 Oregon — 

26 Penn 

27 R. Island.. 

trolma 
29 Tennessee 


231.610 2u,779 
5J270 *1,319 
268.090 

12.244 


187.232 

3.951 

16,765 

7,707 


442,441 
12,410 

476,442 
19,951 


~UM .-*.. 


33.110 


69.274 
15.438 

218 
74.6SI 

161 


*4,565 



*358 


145,333 
62,986 


ol Vermont.. 

32 Virginia . . 

33 Wisconsin 




86.110 20,040 


6,849 

16,290 

65.021 


1,969 



888 


42,844 

167,223 
152.180 


' Total.... 
Lincoln's P 


l.S^.352 326,391 1,375,157 4.477 
lurality.. *49 1.196 


847.514 


58,737 


587,830 




4,676,853 



* Plurality over Douglas. + Plurality over BelL * Plurality over Breckinridge. 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



123 



ELECTORAL VOTE OF 1860. 





- 


President. 


Vice-President. 




States. 


Co 

M 


9 

bo 

2 


e 

V 

in 

i| 


CO 

oS ^ 

to 


¥ 


5 
cap 

ftO 

o« 

1-5 

9 

4 


M CO 

Is 


si 


1' 


1 






9 
4 










9 


•> 
















4 


T 




4 
6 






4 
6 






4 


4 




...„. 

3 
10 












6 


S 




3 
3 
10 






3 
3 


8 
















7 
















10 


R 


Illinois 


11 

13 
4 






11 
13 

4 






11 


q 
















13 


10 
















4 


11 






12 






12 




12 


r> 






6 






6 


6 

8 


is 




8 






8 






it 




8 






8 






g 


is 




13 
6 

4 






13 
6 
4 






13 


16 
















6 


17 
















4 


18 




7 






7 






7 
g 


19 








9 
"3" 






9 






5 
4 
35 






5 
4 
35 
















3 


7 


w 


New York ^ 










35 


98 


10 






10 






10 


?4 


Ohio 


23 
3 

27 
4 






23 

3 
27 
4 






23 


w 


















?|fi 










27 


'7 


















?,8 




8 






8 






8 


w 






12 






12 




12 


so 






4 






4 


4 


si 


Vermont 

Virginia. 


5 






5 






5 


S9 




is 






15 




15 
5 


33 




5 






5 

180 






Total 








72 








180 


72 


39 


12 


39 


12 


303 





124 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES, 



POPULAR VOTE OF 1864. 



Alabama* 

Arkansas' 

California 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida* 

Georgia* 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana* 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts... 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

ppi* 

Missouri 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina*. 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode" Island 

South Carolina*. 

Tennessee 

Texas* 

Vermont 

Virginia* 

West Virginia. . . 
Wisconsin 



Total 

Lincoln's Majority. 



Abraham Lincoln, 
Republican. 



Vote. ! Maj. 



Geo. B. McClellan, 
Democratic. 



Vote. | Maj. 



Total 
Vote. 



62,134 

44:691 
8,155 



2,406 



42.285 
8,767 



159.496 
150,422 
89.075 
16,441 



39.479 
12,750 



158,730 

130.233 
49,596 
3,691 
04,301 



17.592 
7.414 



61.803 

40.153 
126.742 
91.521 16,917 

25,060 



44.211 
32,739 
48,745 
74,604 
17,375 



36,515 



105,975 
86,976 
16,922 



72,750 
36.400 



41.072 
3,232 



31.678 
6,594 
32,871 
68.024 
36L986 



7,301 



265.154 59,586 

9£B8 1 8,457 

296,391 20,075 276.316 

13,692 5,222 8,470 



42,419 29,( 



13,321 



83,458 



12,714 
17,574 



10,438 
C3",SS4 



135.671 
20.132 
92,087 



106.014 
72,S92 
175.487 
166.125 
42,435 



184,428 

16,420 

69.271 
128.747 
730,721 



470.722 
18.345 

572,707 
22.162 



55,740 



33,590 
149,342 



451,770 

407,342 



1,808,725 



44,423 4,024,792 



The eleven States marked thus (*) did not vote. 



KKPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



125 



ELECTORAL VOTE OF 1864. 





Presi- 


VlCE- 






Presi- 


VlCE- 






dent. 


Pres. 




States. 


dent. 


Pres. 




States. 


c 



1 




d 

a 




d 



a 

c 

«a 







C 
J 




a 
a 

O 


S 



J 

"S 








3 


V 


m 


a 


a: 
3 
A 


tJ 








a 


O 




3 

cc 

a 


T! 








O 
O 
| 


O 
a 


0/ 

"3 


0) 

ft 


0> 

a 






c 


3 


U 




3 


a 



'3 
a 






a 


ri 


3 
3 





w 


c3 
□ 


.-2 

4a 




A 


« 




c 
1-5 


n 


s 




a 




< 





> 

8 
5 


< 
■5 


d 


> 

8 
5 


8 

5 
5 




< 


C5 


> 

i 


-4 

11 
2 
5 





> 

i 


Eh 




20 

21 
22 




11 
2 
fi 


n 










3 


3 California 


5 




New Hampshire 


ft 


4 Connecticut 


« 






« 






6 


23 


New Jersey 




7 






7 




7 






3 


'3 

9 




3 


3 

9 


3 

a 


24 
25 
26 




33 




'9 


33 
"21 




9 


33 






North Carolina 

Ohio 


<) 


7! Georgia 






21 


8 Illinois 


16 
13 






16 
13 






16 
13 
R 


27 

2S 




3 

26 






3 

26 




- 


3 


9 Indiana 


Pennsylvania 


26 


10 Iowa 


S 






s 






29 


Rhode Island 


4 






4 






4 




3 


ii 


'7 


3 


ii 


"7 


3 
11 


30 
31 
32 








6 
10 
6 






6 


6 


12 Kentucky 








10 


13 Louisiana 




Texas 






fi 




7 
7 






7 

7 






7 
7 


83 
31 




5 




in 


5 




in 


ft 






10 


16 Massachusetts 


12 






12 






1? 


35 


"West Virginia 


fi 






ft 






ft 




8 






S 






8 


36 


s 






H 






8 


18 Minnesota 


4 






4 






4 






























7 






7 


T 




Total 


212 


. 


81 


213 


21 


81 


314 













126 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAR VOTE OF 1868. 



States. 


Ulysses S. Grant, 
Republican. 


Horatio Seymour, 
Democratic. 


Total 
Vote, 




Tote. 


Maj. 


Vote. 


Maj. 






76,366 
22,112 
54.5S3 
50.995 
7,623 
Electors 
57.134 
250*303 
176£48 
120.399 
31,048 
39,566 

70,493 
30.43B 

136,477 
128,550 
43,545 


4.278 ; 
3,034 
506 
3,043 


72.088 
19,078. 
54,077 
47.952 
10,980 
by the 
102,722 
199.143 
166,980 
74,040 
13.990 
115,890 
ni.225 
GUM 
62,357 
59,408 
97,069 
28,075 




148,454 
41,190 
MUM 

98,947 
















3,357 ; 
Lejrisla- 
45,588 


tajna 


6 Florida 


chosen 

oi'.ieo" ' 

9,568 
46,359 
17.058 




159.S56 
449,446 
343.528 
194,4-59 
45.038 












"76;324" 
46,962 

'3i',9i9"' 




155 456 






113.4-8 
112,a>3 




28,033 




92,795 
195.885 




77.069 
31.481 
15,470 






225,619 






71,620 


IP "Ui^i^ippi 






9,729 
6.480 
38,191 
80.131 
419.883 
96.769 
»£B 
10.961 
342,280 

62,301 
56,628 


21.232 
4.290 
1.262 
6,967 


65,628 

5,439 

5,218 

31.224 

83,001 

OMBI 

S4.601 

338£0G 

11.125 

313,382 

6.548 

45,2:57 

26,129 




152.4S8 






15,168 
UjSH 








'£870 * 
10,000 


69,415 




163.132 






849.766 




12,168 
41,617 

ni» ' 

6,445 
17,064 

30,499 


1-1.S7" 


27 Ohio 




518JBB 




164 


22.0*6 




655,652 






19,541 






107,538 






82,757 










44,167 


32,122 


12,045 




56,212 










29,175 
108,857 


8.S69 
24,150 


20,306 

84.707 




49.481 






193^64 








Total 


3,015,071 


522.642 
305,458 


2,709,613 


217,184 


5,724,684 













REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



127 



ELECTOKAL VOTE OF 1868. 





Presi- 
dent. 


VlCE- 

Pres 


•i 
'I 

f 

51 

6 1 

3 

3i 

9 

16 

13 

8 

3 

11 

i 7 

7 
12 

v\ 






Presi- 
dent. 


VlCE- 

Pres. 




States. 


5 

4-1 

o 

a 

ci 
t- 

0Q 

tS 

8 
5 
5 
6 


■*— < 
o 

u 



3 
>> 

s 

'3 
9 

ii 

7 
'7 


_g 

"3 
a 
« 

'7 


•6 

a 

o 

i 



O 

72 

8 
5 
5 
6 

3 

ie 

13 

8 
3 

'7 
ii 

8 
4 


6 
M 


»-" a 

"3 i 

s 1 

fc > 

3 ! 

'9 ! 

ii '. 

7 . 

7! 


States. 


>-< 

C 

a 
ea 
h 



H2 

P 




a 

a 

w 

33 




'3 
a 

O 

io 

9S 


■d 

a 

<»- 
c 

| 


° 

m 

11 
3 
3 
5 

'"9 
21 

26 

4 
6 
10 

"5 

"5 

8 

214 


6 

M 

!• 

3 

'7 
33 

'3 

an 


03 

0> 
O 

a 

1 

6 

io 

?!3 


1 




20 

21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
2S 
29 

oil 

31 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 
37 




11 
3 
3 
5 


11 






3 


3 California 




3 




New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 


5 




7 


6 Florida 


3 


33 




9 -- 


9 


8 Illinois. .. . 


16 
13 
,8 
3 


21 

26 
4 
6 

10 


3 


ffl 




Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 


3 


10 Iowa 

11 Kansas 

12 Kentucky 


26 
4 
fi 






1(1 


14 Maine 


7 


Texas 


6 






5 




5 




12 

8 
4 




in 




West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Total 


5 

8 

214 


80 


fi 




s 


191 Mississippi 










317 































128 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAR TOTE OF 1872. 



States. 


17. S. ( 
Reput 


Jrant, 
)licam 

Maj. 


H. Greeley. 
Dem. & Lib. Rep. 


O'Conor, 
Dem. 


Black, 
Temp. 


Total 

Vote. 




Vote. 


Vote. Maj. 


Vote. Vote. 






90.272 
41.373 
54.020 
5u,6.3S 
11.115 
17.763 
62.550 
241,944 
186,147 
131.566 
67.048 
S8.766 
71,663 

66.760 
133.472 

55,117 

119,196 
18,329 
8.413 
37,168 
91.656 

440,736 

11.819 
349.589 
13,665 

72.290 
85,655 

41.4-1 

32.315 


l\-25 
3.446 

12,234 

4,348 

422 

2,336 

""'53,948' 
21.098 
53,149 , 
33.4S2 

"'14,634' 
32,335 | 

74*,2i2" 
S&.068 

20,694 i 


7:^.444 
37.927 

45,880 

10,206 
15.427 
76,356 

71496 

32,970 
99,99.1 

29,087 
67,687 

59.260 

78,355 

34.423 

47,2>S 

151.434 

7.S12 

6,236 

31,424 

T'Uoo 

■ 244,321 
7,730 








169 716 










79.300 






1,068 
204 
487 




""'206' 


95,806 






96,928 

21.808 












33.190 


7 Georgia 


9306 


4,000 
3,058 
1.417 
2,221 
986 
2,314 




142,906 
429,940 
351.196 














204,983 




■""8,855* 




100,614 






191,135 

128.692 






14 Maine 


908" 


i9' 




90,509 




134,466 
192,732 










2,861 


1.271 


220.942 


1:? Minnesota 

19 Mississippi 




89.540 




;::: 




129.463 


29.S09 


2,429 




273.059 




1",517 
2.177 
5.444 
14.57" 
51,800 
24,675 
r4.2-:- 
3517 
136^18 
[L39S 
49,4t0 j 


"'29,9Ci' 
1.772 
2,264 

S25.326 

72;.y:5 




26,141 










14,649 


23 New Hampshire. 

24 New Jersey 

25 New York 

26 North Carolina. . . 

27 Ohio 




100 

630 

1,454 

""'1,163' 

572 


200 


68,?92 




829,672 




201 , 
"'2',i66'; 




164,S63 
529,436 






20.121 


29 Pennsylvania 

30 Rhode Island 

31 South Carolina... 

32 Tennessee 

33 Texas 

34 Vermont 


212,141 
5.329 
22,703 
94,391 

10.927 
91,654 
29,451 




1,630 


563.260 


""8,736' 
16,595 


1J7' 


18,994 
95.1S0 
180,046 
116,405 




2,499 
593 

600 

834 






53dOQl 




185,164 


3K West Virginia.... 
37 Wisconsin 




62,366 






192,303 








Total 

Granfs Majority. 


2,834,079 


74,709 


29,408 


5,608 


6,466,165 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



120 



ELECTORAL VOTE OF 1872. 





President, j 


Vice-President. 




States. 


-; 

O 
4» 
S 

u 

O 
CC 
a; 
9 
cc 
ce 

>> 

p 

10 


■6 
o 

CO 

M 

«3 

"S 
W 


d 

s 


PS 

& 


(- 

PQ 

N 

cd 

5 


1 




cc* 

a 

u 
d 


CC° 

C 
fl 

<M 

c 

cc" 

B> 

«s 

A 


d 

1 

a 

c 

2- 
"e 

'3 

S 

IT 


DO 

d 

3 

o 
e 

1 

W 
10 

"g 


8 
4 

21 
15 
11 
5 

"7 

i3 

11 

5 
8 

"3 
3 

5 
9 

35 
10 
22 
3 
29 
4 
7 

"5 
11 
5 
10 

2S6 


6 


d 
pq 

'5 

'8 
'8 

6 

■• 
i2 

8 
47 


a 

1-8 

6 
'5 

:: 

■■ 
;: 

5 


c 

jr 
"3 
O 

w" 

'5 

5 


c 




O 

2 
s 

1-5 
3 

3 


M 

O 

a" 

g 

3 

pq 

H 

'3 

3 


c 

3 



■Q 

OJ 



e 

i 

1 


M 

C 

g 

s 

i 

1 


cc 

C3 
S 
O 

CO 

s 

i 

1 


d 

!| 

6 

*8 

11 


O 




10 
6 
6 
6 

3 






6 
6 
3 
4 




'6 
4 


'2 








(5 Florida 






11 
21 


8 Illinois 


21 
15 
11 
5 


8 




15 




11 




5 




12 

8 








7 


"8 
6 

i-2 

s 

49! 


;; 

'8 
18 


2 


i 
l 


7 




8 




13 
11 
5 
8 


13 




11 




5 




8 


20 Missouri 


15 




3 

3 
5 
9 

35 
10 
22 
3 

29 
4 
7 


3 


22 Nevada 


3 








9 




35 




10 


27 Ohio ■ 


22 


28 Oregon 


3 




29 


30 Rh ode Island 


4 








12 


33 Te xas 




8 




5 

11 
5 
10 

2S6 


5 




11 


36 West Virginia 


5 




10 


Total 


Bfifi 









130 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAR VOTE OF 1876. 



States. 


S. J. Tilden, 
Democratic. 


R. B. Hayes, 
Republican. 


§1 
\\ 

® U 
I 


® 

il 

6 


a 

« 

! 


Total 
Vote. 


Vote. 


Maj. 


Vote. 


Maj. 




\ 

3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
Ml 
11 

3 

14 
15 
16 
17 
IS 
19 
20 
21 
<» 

a 

24 
33 

2.; 

27 

a 

29 

30 
31 

32 

33 
:il 
35 

:3C 

a? 
an 




102,002 

76,465 
Electors 
61,9:34 
13,381 
22,923 
130,068 
258,601 
213,526 
112,099 
37,902 
159.690 
70,508 
49,823 
91,780 
106,777 
141,095 
48,799 
112,173 
203,077 
17,554 
9,308 
38.509 
115,962 
521.949 
125.427 
323,182 


33.772 
19.113 

chosen 
1,712! 
2,629 

I 

79,642| 

"5,515 | 
' 59,772 1 
' 19,756 

:::::;:: 

"59,568, 

54,389 



' 11.690 
26,568 
17,010 


68,230 

38.669 

79,269 

by the 

59,034 

10.752 

23,849 

50,446 

278,232 

208,011 

171,327 

78,322 

97,156 

75,135 

66.3U0 

71,981 

150.063 

166,534 

72,962 

52,605 

145,029 

31,916 

10,383 

41,539 

103.517 

489.207 

108.417 

330.698 

5.206 

384,122 

15.787 

91,870 

89,566 

44,800 

44.092 

95,558 

42,698 

130,668 










170,332 
97,029 
155,800 




2,738' 
Legis- 


289 

47 

lature . 

774 










19 






378 


36 


122,156 




24 133 


Florida 


926 








46,772 










180.534 




1,971 

' '50,191 
32,511 

4,627 
15,814 

' '40,423 
15,542 
21,780 


17.233 
9,533 
9,001 
7,776 
1,944 


141 


286 


554,493 




431.07Q 
292,463 




36 
110 
818 


'"23 


Kansas 


124,133 

259.608 




145,643 




663 
33 

779 
9,060 
2,311 






116,786 




10 
84 
766 
72 


""71 


163,804 




259,703 


Michigan 


317.526 
124,144 




164,778 




' '10,326 
1,075 
2,954 


3,498 
2,320 


64 
1,599 


97 
117 


351,765 




53,506 




19,691 


New Hampshire 


76 

712 

1,987 


i::: 


80.124 


43 

2,359 


1,828 


220,231 




1,017,330 


North Carolina 

Ohio. 


233.844 


2,747 

547 

9.375 

4,947 

964 


3,057 
510 

7,187 
68 


1,636 


76 


658 649 




14.149 ! 

36G.158 1 


20,865 




1,319 
60 


83 


758,869 




10,712 
9" 906 




26,627 


South Carolina 





182,776 


133,166 
104,755 

20,254 
139,670 

56.455 
123,927 


43,600 
59,955 

' 44,112 
12,384 








222,732 












149,555 




23,838 








64.346 










235.228 




5,206 


1,373 
1,509 






100,526 




27 




256,131 




Total 






4,284,757 


545.672 
156,909 


4,033,950 


248,501 


81,740 


9,522 


2,636 


8,412,605 


I 






1 







REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



131 



ELECTORAL VOTE OP 1876. 





Presi- 


Vice 






Presi- 


VlCE- 






dent. 


Pres. 






dent. 


Pres. 










►i 


•6 






\A 


a 






o 


i*' 


fc 








o 


h 


fc 


a 






.a 


















vi 






O 


tz; 


O 


O 






o 


ft 










States. 


%-i 








States. 


VI 












o 






M 








O 




M 














































































k, 




A 


•0 






fc. 




A 


•O 






H 






W 


5 

o 




w 


1-9 


* 
4 


W 


•i 




« 


02 


If 


H 




P3 


ai 


£ 


H 


l 
2 
3 






10 
6 


<"i' 


10 
6 


10 
6 

6 


21 

23 






15 


"3" 

3 


15 


is 








3 
3 


3 


California 


fi 


Nevada 


3 


4 




3 


3 

ii' 
'is* 


3 

"i" 
"ii" 


"6 

3 

"ii" 
iV 


3 
6 

3 
4 

11 
21 
15 


24 
25 

29 
27 
28 
29 
30 


New Hampshire 


5 


*9" 
35 
10 


5 

*22" 
3 
20 


"9' 

35 
10 


5 


*) 


Connecticut 


9 


fi 






35 


7 


Florida* 


4 


North Carolina 

Ohio 


'22' 
3 

29 


in 


R 




2?, 


q 


Illinois 


21 


Oregon* 


3 


10 


Indiana 


Pennsylvania 


29 


11 

12 
13 
14 
IS 




11 
5 


'i2' 


n 

5 

'8' 

7 


i2" 


11 
5 

12 

8 
7 


31 

32 
33 
34 
35 


Rhode Island 

South Carolina* 


4 

7 


'vz' 

8 


4 

7 

"5" 


'i2' 
8 


4 




7 




12 




8 

7 


Texas 




8 


Maine 


Vermont 


ft 


ft 


16 
17 






8 


is" 


8 


8 
13 


36 
37 






11 

ft 




11 
ft 


11 


Massachusetts 


13 


West Virginia 




ft 


lSMichigan 


11 




4 




11 


38 


Wisconsin 


10 




10 




10 


I9Minnesota 


5 






5 


















20 






K 




8 


8 




Total 


185 


184 


185 


184 


3fiq 













* From Florida two sets of certificates were received : from Louisiana, three ; from Oregon, 
two ; and from South Carolina, two. They were referred to an Electoral Commission, formed 
under the provisions of the Compromise Bill, approved January 29th, 1877; the Commission 
decided in favor of counting the Electoral Vote, as returned in the table. 

Number of Counties in each State and Territory in 1878. 



1 




I 
67 


* 




71 
75 
115 

62 
14 
10 
21 
60 
94 
88 
23 
67 
5 
33 
94 

151 
14 

105 


37 

38 

1 

2 
3 

4 
5 
6 

7 
8 


West Virginia 


34 


'? 




74 !20 






60 


3 




52 

30 
8 
3 

39; 

137] 
102! 
92 1 
99i 
76 


24 
9 

28 
30 




Total Counties 

Territories. 
Arizona 




4 






WW 


<S 








« 




New Hampshire 




7 


Florida 




8 








9 




North Carolina 

Ohio 


6 


10 




34 


11 




Oregon 




10 


12 






10 


13 




117, 31 


Rhode Island ... 

South Carolina 




1? 


14 




58! 
16! 
23 
14 
76 


- 
33 
34 
35 
36 


Utah 


">0 


1ft 






n 


1fi 






Wyoming 

Total 


<s 


17 








18 




Virginia 


i?i 











132 



BEPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



POPULAE AND ELECTOEAL VOTE FOE PEESIDENT, 

1880. 





i 

o 

si 

C5 


a 

90 
8S 

a 


J 

fl 


be 
fl 


O Si 

El 

aft 
d5 


K 


u 

cS 
3 
P. 

o 
So 


Electoral 
vote. 


States. 


2 

o 

s- 
cS 

C5 

1 

""i 

3 
6 

"2i 
15 
11 
5 

'"i3 

11 
5 

""3 

'"22 
3 

29 

.... 4 

\'2 

"10 

214 

59 

58.00 


A 

o 

o 

a 
W 

10 
6 
5 

...... 

4 
11 

::::: 

"ii 

8 
...... 

""8 
15 

""s 

..... 

'"io 
...„ 

12 
8 

"ii 

5 

155 
42.00 


"3 

1 




56,178 
41,661 
80,348 
27.450 
67,073 
14,150 
23,654 
52.648 
318,037 
223,164 
183,904 
121,520 
104.550 
37,994 
74,039 
78,515 
165,205 
1S5.190 
93,903 
34,854 
153,567 
54,979 
8,732 
44,852 
120,555 
5:>5,544 
115.878 
375,048 
20,619 
444,7(4 
18,195 
58,071 
107,677 
57,815 
45,090 
84,020 
46,213 
144,397 


90.6S7 4,642 
60,489 4.(179 






34,509 

18,828 

78 


151,5' 7 
106.229 
164,166 

53,532 
132.770 

29,333 

51,618 
155.651 
t>22,312 
470,678 
322,706 
201,019 
264,304 

97.201 
143,853 
173.039 
282.512 
352.441 
150.771 
117,078 
397,221 

87,355 

18,343 

86,363 
215,928 
1.104,605 
241,218 
724,967 

40,816 
874,783 

29,235 
170,956 
241,827 
241.478 

64,593 
212.135 
112,713 
267,172 


10 
6 











80,426 
24,647 
04,417 
15,183 


3,392 
1,435 
'868 


6 
3 




'""412 


2,803 




2,656 






1,| 33 
4,310 

49,874 






27,964 








4 




102,522 

277,321 

• 225,528 

105,815 


481 
26,358 

12,986 
H2.327 








596 
'""'630 
' ' ' 257 


40.716 
6.636 


21 


Indiana 


15 




79,059 

61,731 

43 449 


11 




59,789 10,710 
147,999 11,498 
65,310 439 
65,171 1 4.40S 
93,706 1 818 
111,960 4 548 
131,300 34,795 
53,315 3,267 
75.750 5,797 
2d8,fi09 1 35.045 
28,523 3.853 






12 






27,316 

'io',i9i 


3 




235 


8,868 






8 


Massachusetts 


799 

1,156 

286 

677 




53,245 
53,890 


13 
11 




40.5S8 

40.896 


<s 




8 






55,142 

879 

"2,6io 

" '8,326 


15 






26,456 


3 




9,611 
40,794 
122,565 

534,511 
124,204 
340 821 




3 


New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 


528 
2.617 
12,373 
1,136 

6.456 


189 

191 

2,177 

"2,642 

"i,983 
25 
7 
43 

" ' lio 


4,058 
"2i;633 
'34,227 


5 
9 
35 
10 

91?! 




19,948 219 
407,428 20,668 

10.779 236 
112,312 566 
128.191 5,916 
156,228 27,405 

18,181 1,212 
127,976 139 

67,391 9,079 
114,634) 7,080 


671 

37,276 

7,416 

! 54,241 

20,514 

1 98,383 

26,909 

43.956 


3 




29 




4 


South Carolina 


7 
12 


Texas 

Vermont / 


8 
5 
11 






11.148 


5 




161 




29,763 


10 








Total 


4,449,053 
7,018 
48.26 


4,442,035 307,306 
48.25 3.33 


*12,576 
.13 


537,001 529,983 
7,018 




9,204,428 


369 


Plurality 



















* Of the scattering votes, 10,305 were cast for Neal Dow, " Prohibition " candidate for Presiden' 
and 707 votes for John W. Phelps, " American " or Anti-Secret-Society candidate. 



REPUBLICAN VICTORIES. 



133 



REPUBLICAN FINANCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS. 

Official Treasury Statement, Showing the Annual Reductions in the Princi- 
pal, Interest, and Per Capita Amount of the Public Debt from 1865 
to 1883. 



1S65 

1865-Aug. 3d 
1860-July 1st 

1807 

1868 

1869 

1870 

1871 

1872 

1873 

1874 

1875 

1*76 

is, 7 

ws 

1879 

InSiI 

18S1 

1S82 



Total interest- 
bearing debt. 



2,221,311,918 29 
2,381,530,294 96 
2.332,331,207 60 
2,248,067,387 GO 
2.202,088,727 69 
2,162,060,522 39 
2,046,455,722 39 
1,934,096,750 00 
1,814,794,100 0<> 
1,710,483.950 00 
l,73s,930,75O 00 
1,722,076,300 00 
1,7»J,685,450 00 
1,711,888.510 00 
1.7H4.735.650 00 
1,797,643,700 (0 
1.7-'3,993,100 00 
1,639.567,750 00 
1,463,810,400 00 
1,338,229,150 00 



Annual interest Debt on which in- 
charge. terest has ceased. 



137,742,617 43 
150,977,697 87 
146,068,196 29 
138.S92.451 39 
128,459,598 14 
125,523,998 34 
118,784,960 34 
111,949,330 50 
103,988.463 00 
98,049,-04 00 
98,796,004 50 
96,855.690 50 
95,104, 69 00 
93,160,043 50 
94,654,472 50 
83,773.778 50 
79 631981 00 
75,018,095 00 
57,360,111 00 
51,436,709 00 



1,245,771 20 

1,503.020 09 
935,092 05 
1.840,615 01 
1,197,340 89 
5,260.181 00 
3,708,641 00 
1.948,902 26 
7.926,796 26 

51,92 ',710 26 
3,216,590 26 

11,425,820 26 
3,902,420 26 

16,648,860 26 
5,594,560 26 

37,015,630 26 
7,621.455 26 
6,723,865 00 

16.26)0,805 00 
7,831,415 00 



Debt bearing 
no interest. 



458,090,180 25 
461,616.311 51 
439.969,874 04 
428,218,101 20 
408,401,782 61 
421,131,510 55 
430,508,064 42 
410.505.680 06 
430.530,431 52 
472,069,332 94 
509,543,123 17 
498,182,411 69 
465,807,196 89 
476,764,031 84 
455.875,682 27 
410,835,741 78 
38S.800.815 37 
422,721,954(1') 
43S.2I1.789 00 
538,111,163 00 







Outstanding 


Gash in the 


Total debt, less 


Population 


Debt 


iU 




principal. 


Treasury, 


cash in 


of the 


per 








July 1. 


Treasury. 


United States. 


capita. 


H io 


1865.. 




2.680.647,869 74 


5,832,012 98 


2,674,815,856 76 


34,748,000 


76 93 


3 97 


1865.. 




2,844,649.626 56 


88,218,055 13 


2,756,431371 43 


35.228,0(0 


78 25 


4 29 


1866.. 




2,773.236,173 69 


137.200.009 85 


2,636,0 '6,163 84 


35,469,000 


74 32 


4 12 


1867. . 




2,678,126,103 87 


169,974,892 18 


2,508,151,211 f.9 


36.211,000 


69 26 


3 84 


1868.. 




2,611.687,851 19 


130,834,437 96 


2.480,853,413 23 


36,973,000 


67 10 


348 


1869.. 




2,588,452,213 94 


155,680,340 85 


2,432,771,873 09 


37,756,000 


64 43 


3 32 


1870. . 




2,48n,672,427 81 


149,502,471 60 


2,331,169,956 21 


38,558,371 


60 46 


3 03 


1871.. 




2,353,211,332 !<2 


106,217,263 65 


2,246,994,068 67 


39,555,000 


56 81 


2 83 


1872. . 




2,253,251,328 78 


103.470,798 43 


2,149,7S0,530 35 


40,«M,000 


52 95 


2 56 


1873.. 




2.234,482,993 20 


129,02(1,932 45 


2,105,462,060 75 


41,704,000 


50 49 


235 


1874. . 




2,251,690,468 43 


147,541.314 74 


2.H>4,149,153 69 


42,856.000 


49 10 


2 31 


1875 . 




2,232,284,531 95 


142,243,361 82 


2,090,041,170 13 


44,060,000 


47 44 


2 19 


1876. . 




2,180.395,067 15 


119,469,726 70 


2,060,925,340 45 


45,316,010 


45 48 


2 10 


1877.. 




2,205.301,392 10 


186,025,960 73 


2019,275,431 37 


46.624.000 


43 31 


200 


1878. . 




2,256,205.892 63 


256,823.612 08 


1,999,382,280 45 


47,983,(00 


41 67 


1 97 


1879. . 




2.245,495,072 04 


249,(180,167 01 


1,996,414.905 03 


49,395.000 


40 42 


169 


1880. . 




2,120,415,370 63 


201,08s,622 88 


1.919,326,747 75 


50,858,000 


37 74 


156 


1881.. 




2.069,013,570 00 


249,363,415 00 


1,819,650,154 00 


51,730,000 


35 22 


1 45 


1882.. 




1,918,312,994 00 


243,289,520 00 


1,675,023,474 00 


52,605,000 


31 72 


109 


1883.. 




1,884,171,728 00 


345,389,903 00 


1,538,781,825 00 


54,143,000 


23 41 


95 



